Building a joint landscape learning agenda
Integrated landscape management is increasingly recognized as a means to simultaneously achieve sustainable food production, ecosystem conservation, and sustainable livelihoods at the landscape level. With the aim to contribute to the further sharing of knowledge, dialogue and action to support integrated landscape management worldwide, Wageningen University Centre for Development Innovation (CDI) organized the Netherlands Landscape Learning Journey.
The landscape approach is not new to the Netherlands. Apart from a long history of landscape approaches in Dutch rural development and spatial planning, the landscape approach has often laid the foundation for Dutch development organizations to develop their overseas intervention programmes. It is in this context that CDI organized a “Netherlands Landscape Learning Journey”, especially for partners of the Landscapes for People, Food and Nature Initiative (LPFN), which is an international collaborative initiative of knowledge sharing, dialogue and action to support the integrated landscape approach worldwide.
The Learning Journey took place on June 29, 2016, and was built upon a combination of field visits and thematic sessions, covering the three topics of “landscapes for nature”, “landscapes for food”, and “landscapes for people”. The report of the day defines three sets of generally shared knowledge gaps for the following topics: (1) landscape governance; (2) spatial planning at the landscape level and (3) landscape business and finance.
The Food & Business Knowledge Platform (F&BKP) granted funds for the Learning Journey to strengthen the LPFN network by providing it with knowledge and experience on the landscape approach as how it is operationalized within the Netherlands and to establish a strategic “knowledge agenda” for Dutch partners to contribute to the international landscape debate. The journey offered LPFN partners an opportunity to get acquainted with the landscape experience within the Netherlands, but also to actively exchange their knowledge with Wageningen scholars/students, as well as with a range of Dutch organizations working with the landscape approach in the Netherlands and beyond.
The report will also be input for future activities to build a Dutch network of development partners who work with landscape approaches. Creating a stronger collective identity and visibility of the Dutch network helps to more effectively contribute to the global landscape debate.
