What shapes success in Integrated Landscape Management (ILM)? While quantitative analysis can help identify patterns, Kim Geheb argues that many of the factors that matter most – trust, relationships, local leadership and the ability to "read" a landscape – are often harder to measure, but no less important.

Why do some landscape initiatives gain momentum while others struggle to endure? In this preview of a forthcoming paper, George Schoneveld reflects on lessons from 15 landscapes and the factors that seem to make the biggest difference.

The Paisajes Sostenibles (Sustainable Landscapes) project sought to strengthen environmental governance while testing innovative strategies to improve local livelihoods in a context marked by ecological degradation, institutional fragmentation and low levels of trust among actors.

What does it take to move from dialogue to lasting governance in complex landscapes? In Bolivia’s Chiquitanía region, the answer began with watershed management.

What does it take to bring diverse actors together in fragile, contested landscapes? In a parish in Ecuador, the answer turned out to be water.

What does it take to practice Integrated Landscape Management (ILM) in a place with almost no permanent human presence, weak State institutions, and highly unequal power dynamics?

As the only non-scientist on the team, it's been fun to watch my Central Component colleagues going "soft" ? over the course of this programme. Here's what surprised them.

In the rugged landscapes of northern Laos, conservation is not only about protecting forests and wildlife within park boundaries. It is about forging, maintaining and deepening partnerships with the people who live in and around those landscapes.

One of the six core dimensions of Integrated Landscape Management (ILM), as articulated in our Central Component’s initial hypothesis, is stakeholder engagement: inclusive, meaningful engagement of all those who shape or depend on a landscape is vital. But what does effective engagement look like in practice?

When Lemson Betha first arrived in Zimbabwe’s southeast Lowveld to work as a facilitator for SAT-WILD, he was stepping into unfamiliar territory: he hadn’t grown up in the region, and didn’t speak the local language. But he knew that building trust would be the foundation of any successful work.