Spatial Tools for Integrated and Inclusive Landscape Governance: Toward a New Research Agenda

Participatory spatial tools—community mapping, PGIS, and others—find increasing resonance among research and non-governmental organizations to make stakeholder claims and community perspectives explicit for more inclusive landscape governance. In this paper, we situate the use of participatory spatial tools in debates on integrated landscape approaches and inclusive development. We show that using such spatial tools is not new but argue that their application for inclusive landscape governance requires a new research agenda that focuses on expanding the scope of application of the tools, improving the inclusivity of the processes, and developing new technologies

Rethinking the divide: Exploring the interdependence between global and nested local markets

The debate on smallholder commodification trajectories tends to be polarised between mainstream approaches that advocate tighter integration of smallholders into global value chains, and alternative approaches that favour localised markets on the grounds that these provide greater autonomy over production and marketing, and allow a greater share of value to be realised for producers and the wider community. This debate obscures the interrelations and possible synergies between them; a critique taken up in this paper. Using a case study on agricultural diversification in the former homeland of Venda, South Africa, we explore the usefulness of the nested markets concept to make sense of smallholders' patterning of markets by combining tree crops for export with seasonal vegetables for local markets. Exploring the drivers of diversification, we show how farmers’ patterning of markets depends on their profiles and corresponding trajectory of accumulation. Local markets are articulated systems that function as hybrid spaces of interaction that enable farmers without any alternative off-farm income to gain and sustain access to global commodity markets. This challenges the framing of nested markets as an act of resistance as well as the dichotomy between local versus global markets as mutually exclusive. Instead, we argue that these markets can be interconnected and mutually supportive and are opportunistically used as such by petty commodity producers to sustain their export-oriented production system. If these relations are better understood, they stand to enable agrarian policy, which currently favours high-value tree crops, to be more inclusive of young and less well-resourced farmers

Towards more inclusive community landscape governance:Drivers and assessment indicators in northern Ghana

Community-based approaches to landscape governance are considered more legitimate, equitable, and inclusive ways to manage natural resources and more effective in achieving conservation and livelihood goals than centralised and top-down approaches. In Ghana, the Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission devolved decision-making authority over natural resources through the Community Resource Management Area (CREMA) governance system. While there is a growing body of literature on the CREMA governance model, few studies have examined the inclusiveness of its decision-making processes. This study aims to fill this gap by identifying the drivers that hinder or foster the inclusiveness of community governance in the Western Wildlife Corridor of northern Ghana and developing a set of inclusivity assessment indicators. Based on data collected through key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and observations, we found that several stakeholder groups remain at the margins of the CREMA governance system and feel excluded, particularly Fulani herders, women, and youth. Based on our findings and the literature, we present a set of assessment indicators for inclusive CREMA governance. However, these indicators are unlikely to be fully met because of persisting socio-cultural barriers and power asymmetries. We argue that measures such as capacity building, empowering marginalised social groups, promoting their participation in decision-making, and a bottom-up approach towards creating CREMAs are needed to improve the inclusiveness of CREMA governance. Beyond the CREMAs, the inclusivity indicators developed in this study have broad applicability to environmental and landscape governance