About Landscapes For Our Future

Background

Land provides essential ecosystem services to both people and planet. Growing demand for food, fuel, fibre and timber is, however, stretching the capacity of land to accommodate the needs of a growing population. This drives competition for land (resources), resulting in deforestation, climate change, social conflict, inequality and biodiversity loss. Currently, the land use sector accounts for an estimated 24% of global greenhouse gas emissions and has contributed to the degradation of over one-third of the world’s landscapes. This has resulted in trillions of annual economic losses and loss of livelihood for over 1 billion people.

Integrated Landscape Management (ILM) has emerged as a promising approach to managing competing land use pressures and the fragmented policy space in many countries. Premised on principles of participation, cooperation and community empowerment, ILM offers a compelling framework for linking agricultural practices, institutions and policies with other landscape-scale activities.

About the programme

ILM is integral to the European Union’s (EU) ambitious post-2020 biodiversity and food systems agendas and its commitment to the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals. ILM approaches also facilitate an inclusive green recovery consistent with the EU Green Deal.

In 2019, the EU launched the 5-year Landscapes For Our Future programme, which now supports 22 ILM projects, spanning 19 countries and 3 sub-regions across the Global South. Offering solutions to context-specific land use challenges, Landscapes For Our Future will advance goals relating to:

1. food and nutrition security, job creation, and resilient and sustainable agriculture;
2. climate change mitigation and adaptation; and
3. biodiversity and land/forest ecosystems conservation, restoration and sustainable use.

Supported projects encompass a wide range of thematic areas, ranging from biodiversity and landscape conservation to climate-smart agriculture and sustainable value chain development.