Is the Integrated Landscape Approach the answer we need to tackle many of the world’s problems?
- Isaac Finn
- Dec 13, 2023
- 6 min read
or does it fall short in tackling the issues we face?
As usual the answer is not clear cut, and there is a lot of nuance to the answer. This article draws heavily from the work of Reed et al., (2016) and other works which are listed in the references here.
Contents:
TLDR: The Integrated Landscape Approach (ILA) is a valuable tool to produce meaningful and long-lasting change to our most vulnerable communities. Understandably, it cannot be implemented in isolation; for example, in proving sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. It is needed in conjunction with other key aspects to ensure its success, and a lot of work is needed to make ILA more effective.
What is the Integrated Landscape Approach?
The Integrated Landscape Approach is an answer to the siloed and sectoral approach to land management. These approaches are falling short of answering many of the world’s major problems such as adequate food production, providing water and sanitation to all, and helping our ecosystems (Reed, Deakin and Sunderland, 2015).
(A more in-depth and all-encompassing article is provided by (Reed, Deakin and Sunderland, 2015)).
An stylised and simplified example is visualised below. The siloed approach to problems might not be able to tackle issue of Climate Change in North Yorkshire. The solutions and optimal strategy for one goal can cause issues for other silos and their goals that we are trying to address.
Photo by (Doc Searls, 2016) (use through the creative commons license).
The integrated landscape approach tries to address the issue through the different disciplines communicating and working towards the a common goal. A very key element is engaging with local stakeholders to understand the full spectrum of views in the community.
The infographic below shows a simplified and hypothetical way of using an integrated landscape approach in North Yorkshire to tackle climate change.
The solutions and pathway from the integrated landscape approach will try to ensure the stakeholders are not working against each other. In the case of North Yorkshire and Climate Change action, this will involve engaging with local governments, farmers, the public, Ecologists and the scientific community. Ideally, this will create a holistic solution and take into account the wider landscape of the region. However, there are shortcomings and barriers to making a successful ILA.
The differences between frameworks used to tackle the world’s problems:
There is a lot of overlap and similarities between the methods used to tackle issues. This section will dive into this nuance.
1. Top-down approach:
A top-down approach, in a development context, is a way of tacking issues that comes primarily from governments or NGOs and placed upon individual communities or landscapes. An example is a government deciding to build a dam in a location with little consultation with the community.
The Three Gorges Dam, China. (Kathy, 2007).
Generally, communities have little opportunity to stop or change these projects. Yet, these developments get build anyway. Reed et al., (2016) shares that top-down approaches can be used in conjunction with integrated landscape approaches, but there is a real risk that the partner’s objectives (e.g., the government) will not be aligned with the objectives of the practitioner (the person implementing the ILA). This has the potential to marginalise the local communities, and is similar to overall problems of taking a solely top-down approach.
2. Botton-up approach:
Bottom-up approaches are solutions that emerge from within the communities themselves. As defined by Wallner et al., (1994) “Bottom-up normally refers to an initiate launched by people in a neighbourhood and, in most cases, does not include municipal or regional governments”.
The bottom-up approach is the direct opposite to the top-down approach with solutions coming from local populations. An example of this is Village banks and Self-help Groups that help their community through microfinancing. This is an example of local people grouping together and tackling the issue of them not being able to get financing from banks. More generally, this refers to solutions to problems coming from within communities.
An representation of microfinancing. (Research Leap, 2015).
However, this approach often can be hindered by a lack of financial support, a leadership structure, manpower behind the project and political power to get the project done.
3. Multi-level approaches:
This can be characterised by a combination of top-down and bottom-up approaches. An example can be a project that has government backing through funding and resources, but must also engage with local people through stakeholder engagement to come up with solutions that are acceptable to all parties involved.
Below is an example of how both the top-down and bottom-up approaches can tackle an issue such as climate adaption policy. The top-down focusing on the global scale and then scaling down to the local. Whereas, the bottom-up focusing on individuals and communities first and tackling more the social side of vulnerability and how it affects people. The two different approaches meeting in the middle to achieve climate adaption policies. This approach can be used to tackle many issues ranging from climate change adaption policies to infrastructure projects.
(Dessai and Hulme, 2004)
The Integrated Landscape Approach (ILA) works best utilising a multi-levels as part of its implementation. Multi-level approaches can be used without the implementation of the ILA, such as using multi-levels for a certain sector or silo. E.g., An implementation of a welfare programme designed by HM Treasury in the UK. It is worth noting that the ILA most likely would not be suitable for implementing such a programme as this is very sectoral in nature. The bringing in of other sectors and to create a full landscape most likely would not be suitable.
As pointed out by Reed et al., (2015) utilising multi-level and hybrid approaches is the preferable way for conducting ILAs, as it facilitates the integration of traditional knowledge from within communities alongside institutional backing through manpower, resources and financial support.
4. Nature-based solutions (NbS):
Natured-based solutions aim to tackle biodiversity loss alongside climate change or other issues such as water security. As pointed out by Pettorelli et al. (2021) this can be extremely beneficial because by linking the issues of climate change and biodiversity loss you can come up with solutions for both simultaneously. This can include creating wildlife reserves with peatlands to sequester carbon. Also, limiting projects that could potentially be not optimal for biodiversity, such as a project that would plant non-native trees that are better at taking in CO2 than native species. However, the NbS would be to plant the native species to create a thriving ecosystem. There is a significantly higher amount of funding available for climate change projects compared to ones focused on biodiversity loss. Therefore, connecting the two causes can help lift this as a priority to policymakers and funding organisations.
Nature-based Solutions tend to have a narrower focus compared to the integrated landscape approach with the attention mainly on climate change and biodiversity directly. In some cases this can lead to the neglect of some of the social aspects of communities. For example, not taking into account the livelihoods of communities who depend on logging for their income source in creating a protected forest region. However, this doe not have to be the case with NbS. A properly implemented ILA ensures that all stakeholders within a landscape are consulted and their voices heard. Therefore elements of the ILA could be incorporated into NbS to ensure social aspects are not missed.
A great video further explaining nature-based solutions by the British Ecological Society can be found below:
5. Summary:
The table below offers a summary of the different approaches and how they relate to the Integrated Landscape Approach:
The approach | Simple summary | Compatible with ILA | Main difference to ILA |
Top-down | Solutions coming from Governments/NGOs and placed upon the community/ landscape. | Yes, but there’s a risk that the government’s objects do not align with the practitioner. | Top-down is simply a solution coming from a partner. ILA uses more elements such as bottom-up. |
Bottom-up | Solutions coming from within communities. | For a successful ILA, it needs to be over a long timeframe, and bottom-up could lack the funds for this. | ILA tends to be more encompassing and include more stakeholders. |
Multi-level | Combining top-down and bottom-up. | The best approach to use within an ILA. | Can be used on siloed individual project too. |
Nature-Based Solutions | Tackling climate change and biodiversity within the same project. | Quite had to combine the two approaches even though they can overlap substantially. This is because they both act as overarching frameworks. | More solely focused on the environment and climate change than ILA. |
References:
- Doc Searls (2016) https://www.flickr.com/photos/docsearls/27403533178
- Kathy (2007) https://www.flickr.com/photos/44603071@N00/424171007
- Pettorelli, N., Graham, N.A.J., Seddon, N., Maria da Cunha Bustamante, M., Lowton, M.J., Sutherland, W.J., Koldewey, H.J., Prentice, H.C. and Barlow, J. (2021) ‘Time to integrate global climate change and biodiversity science‐policy agendas’, Journal of Applied Ecology, 58(11), pp. 2384–2393. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13985.
- Reed, J., Deakin, L. and Sunderland, T. (2015) ‘What are “Integrated Landscape Approaches” and how effectively have they been implemented in the tropics: a systematic map protocol’, Environmental Evidence, 4(1), p. 2. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1186/2047-2382-4-2.
- Reed, J., Van Vianen, J., Deakin, E.L., Barlow, J. and Sunderland, T. (2016) ‘Integrated landscape approaches to managing social and environmental issues in the tropics: learning from the past to guide the future’, Global Change Biology, 22(7), pp. 2540–2554. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13284.
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