Co-creating solutions for the sustainable development of benzoin landscapes in Laos: A case study to reveal the aspirations and needs of local residents

To stay within the planetary boundaries, a radical transformation of all economic systems is needed. This includes rural areas in the Global South, where the quest to overcome poverty all too often focusses on short-term economic growth with detrimental dis-benefits for of natural resources and biodiversity. Sustainable landscape investment is promising to operationalize transformative pathways towards sustainability as it seeks to contribute to multiple elements of landscape sustainability and human well-being: economic production, ecosystems, biodiversity, social bonds as well as financial returns. Together with local benzoin farming communities in shifting cultivation landscapes of Laos we co-developed desirable and most feasible scenarios for the future land use. We identified opportunities that facilitate, and obstacles that hinder the realization of these scenarios by use of backcasting, a transdisciplinary research method. Our study showed that benzoin farming communities see their unique heritage on sustainable benzoin resin production as key asset to reach their vision for the future. They strive for socio-economic development: They developed scenarios based on the intensification of agricultural land use and diversification of income sources through the production of agricultural commodities. Villagers had no knowledge on how to integrate the safeguarding of natural resources and biodiversity conservation into their portfolio of livelihood activities, and financial schemes for these activities had so far not been explored with them. Village communities desired investments in social infrastructure in their villages and material wealth for their families. They identified main obstacles for sustainable benzoin farming as (1) lack of technical innovation and local processing, (2) lack of government support for marketing; (3) lack of market knowledge and price negotiation power; and finally (4) lack of rule of law (theft, illegal benzoin trading). Our results and learnings provide base knowledge for the establishment of a living-lab for sustainable landscape investment in benzoin resin production landscapes of Norther Laos. They furthermore feed into current discussions in Switzerland on how to further sustainable trade of agricultural products and provide insights on potential future contributions from Swiss development cooperation for supporting just transitions in shifting cultivation areas

Dynamics of Shifting Cultivation Landscapes in Northern Lao PDR Between 2000 and 2009 Based on an Analysis of MODIS Time Series and Landsat Images

The rotational nature of shifting cultivation poses several challenges to its detection by remote sensing. Consequently, there is a lack of spatial data on the dynamics of shifting cultivation landscapes on a regional, i.e. sub-national, or national level. We present an approach based on a time series of Landsat and MODIS data and landscape metrics to delineate the dynamics of shifting cultivation landscapes. Our results reveal that shifting cultivation is a land use system still widely and dynamically utilized in northern Laos. While there is an overall reduction in the areas dominated by shifting cultivation, some regions also show an expansion. A review of relevant reports and articles indicates that policies tend to lead to a reduction while market forces can result in both expansion and reduction. For a better understanding of the different factors affecting shifting cultivation landscapes in Laos, further research should focus on spatially explicit analyse

Proletarianization and gateways to precarization in the context of land-based investments for agricultural commercialization in Lao PDR

Labor is central to the debates on global land-based investment. Proponents purport that these investments are an avenue for rural transformation from resource- to wage-based livelihoods through the generation of employment and contribution to poverty reduction. Drawing on a recent, unique national dataset on land concessions in Lao PDR, this paper uses an agrarian political economy lens to investigate how land-based investments live up to this expectation. The paper analyzes potential determinants of the degree to which different social groups engage in wage-labor within land-based investments. Results show that while land-based investments create a significant absolute number of jobs, former land users were offered predominantly low-skilled and seasonal jobs. The effects of these investments on rural employment are uneven depending on degrees of land and resource dispossession, the extent of job creation, and the availability of alternative opportunities in the region. In the majority of cases, former land users, especially women were pushed into precarious conditions through three processes: dispossession without proletarianization; limited proletarianization; and adverse proletarianization. We argue that the promotion of land-based investments as an approach for rural development, particularly along the gradient of transforming resource- to wage-labor based livelihoods, is ineffective without concurrent opportunities within and beyond the agricultural sector to absorb the labor reallocated from traditional livelihoods. Enforcing labor regulations, including restrictions on hiring of foreign labor, compliance with minimum wages, and relevant skills transfer are essential to minimize precarization and increase benefits for local people. Further, protecting peasants’ individual and common land-use rights is imperative to minimize the concurrence of precarization and increasing traditional vulnerability

Socio-Economic Perspectives on Shifting Cultivation Landscapes in Northern Laos

Despite the rapid agricultural transition that has occurred in the past decade, shifting cultivation remains a widespread agricultural practice in the northern uplands of Lao PDR. Little information is available on the basic socio-economic situation and respective possible patterns in shifting cultivation landscapes on a regional level. On the basis of a recent approximation of the extent of shifting cultivation landscapes for two time periods and disaggregated village level census data, this paper characterizes these landscapes in terms of key socioeconomic parameters for the whole of northern Laos. Results showed that over 550,000 people live in shifting cultivation regions. The poverty rate of this population of 46.5% is considerably higher than the national rural rate. Most shifting cultivation landscapes are located in remote locations and a high share of the population comprises ethnic minorities, pointing to multi-dimensional marginality of these areas. We discuss whether economic growth and increased market accessibility are sufficient to lift these landscapes out of povert

Landscape mosaics maps as a basis for spatial assessment and negotiation of ecosystem services and their trade-offs at the meso-scale: Examples from Laos, Madagascar and China

Mapping ecosystem services (ES) and their trade-offs is a key requirement for informed decision making for land use planning and management of natural resources that aim to move towards increasing the sustainability of landscapes. The negotiations of the purposes of landscapes and the services they should provide are difficult as there is an increasing number of stakeholders active at different levels with a variety of interests present on one particular landscape.Traditionally, land cover data is at the basis for mapping and spatial monitoring of ecosystem services. In light of complex landscapes it is however questionable whether land cover per se and as a spatial base unit is suitable for monitoring and management at the meso-scale. Often the characteristics of a landscape are defined by prevalence, composition and specific spatial and temporal patterns of different land cover types. The spatial delineation of shifting cultivation agriculture represents a prominent example of a land use system with its different land use intensities that requires alternative methodologies that go beyond the common remote sensing approaches of pixel-based land cover analysis due to the spatial and temporal dynamics of rotating cultivated and fallow fields.Against this background we advocate that adopting a landscape perspective to spatial planning and decision making offers new space for negotiation and collaboration, taking into account the needs of local resource users, and of the global community. For this purpose we introduce landscape mosaicsdefined as new spatial unit describing generalized land use types. Landscape mosaics have allowed us to chart different land use systems and land use intensities and permitted us to delineate changes in these land use systems based on changes of external claims on these landscapes. The underlying idea behindthe landscape mosaics is to use land cover data typically derived from remote sensing data and to analyse and classify spatial patterns of this land cover data using a moving window approach. We developed the landscape mosaics approach in tropical, forest dominated landscapesparticularly shifting cultivation areas and present examples ofour work from northern Laos, eastern Madagascarand Yunnan Province in China

Vielfalt ist die Quelle des Lebens: Herausforderungen und Handlungsbedarf für die Förderung der Agrobiodiversität

For millennia, humankind’s food security and resilience were ensured by thousands of cultivated plant species, dozens of domesticated animal species, and the wider biodiversity from which they derive. But with the expansion of industrial agriculture and globalized standardized food systems, this long-running agricultural biodiversity has fallen steeply. Today, just three plant species account for half of all plant-based food calories,1 and only four animal species account for the vast majority of meat supplies.2 Looking ahead, restoring agrobiodiversity – the richness of what we cultivate, breed, consume, and conserve in the wild – is crucial to ensure resilient food systems against the backdrop of climate change. In particular, we must safeguard the livelihoods of the “guardians of agrobiodiversity”: approximately 500 million small farms across the world – particularly those in the global South.3 This factsheet outlines causes and consequences of agrobiodiversity loss, areas of promise, and options for policy and research.Depuis des millénaires, la sécurité alimentaire et la résilience de l’humanité sont assurées par des milliers d’espèces de plantes cultivées, des dizaines d’espèces animales domestiquées et la biodiversité dont elles proviennent. Mais la mondialisation de l’agriculture industrielle et les systèmes alimentaires normés ont fait chuter l’agrobiodiver-sité:trois espèces végétales fournissent la moitié des calories végétales1 et quatre espèces animales produisent presque toute la viande.2 Il est donc crucial de restaurer l’agrobiodiversité – qui représente la richesse de ce que nous cultivons, élevons, consommons et protégeons dans la nature – afin de conserver des systèmes alimentaires résilients, dans un contexte de changement climatique. Il faut d’abord sauvegarder les conditions de vie des «gar-diens de l’agrobiodiversité», les quelques 500 millions de petites fermes dans le monde, surtout dans les pays du Sud.3 Cette fiche d’information définit les causes et conséquences de la perte d’agrobiodiversité, les domaines prometteurs et les opportunités pour les politiques et la recherche.Jahrtausendelang wurde die Ernährungssicherheit und Widerstandsfähigkeit des Menschen durch Tausende von Kulturpflanzensorten, Dutzenden von Haustierarten sowie durch die nicht direkt genutzte Biodiversität, gewähr-leistet. Die starke Ausweitung der agroindustriellen Landwirtschaft führte zu globalen, standardisierten Nahrungs-systemen. Damit einher ginge eine drastische Verringerung der Vielfalt von Pflanzensorten und Tierrassen in der Landwirtschaft. Heute liefern nur drei Pflanzenarten die Hälfte aller pflanzlichen Nahrungskalorien,1 und nur vier Tierarten sind an der Produktion des Grossteils der globalen Fleischversorgung beteiligt.2 Die Wiederherstellung der Agrobiodiversität – die Vielfalt dessen, was wir anbauen, züchten, konsumieren und in freier Wildbahn erhalten – ist von entscheidender Bedeutung, um widerstandsfähige Nahrungssysteme vor dem Hintergrund des Klimawandels sicherzustellen. Dabei gilt es, den «Hütern der Agrobiodiversität» - die rund 500 Millionen kleinen Landwirtschafts-betrieben auf der ganzen Welt, vor allem im globalen Süden3 - den Lebensunterhalt zu sichern. Dieses Faktenblatt beschreibt Ursachen und Folgen des Agrobiodiversitätsverlusts, und zeigt auf, welche Wege Politik und Forschung einschlagen könnten

Integrated Landscape Approach: Closing the Gap between Theory and Application

Recently, the integrated landscape approach has gained increasing interest of the scientific community, as well as of organizations active in the field of sustainable development. However, the enthusiastic welcome is challenged by little consensus on theory, terminology and definitions. Moreover, the operationalization of the approach into practice is a major challenge. In this paper, we present a framework to operationalize the integrated landscape approach in practice by putting a long-term collaboration between scientists and various stakeholder at center stage. Based on encompassing understanding of landscape-level processes and interactions, four pillars addressing different steps of a joint-learning circle are described and illustrated with examples. We consider the integrated landscape approach to be a prime way of targeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but novel forms of collaboration between scientists and other stakeholders based on long-term commitments will be needed for operationalization in practice