What 22 landscape initiatives can tell us about implementation, resilience, biodiversity conservation, and long-term impact in complex territories.
After six years, more than €100 million invested, 22 projects, and >30 countries, the Landscapes For Our Future programme brought its findings to Brussels — and we recorded the conversation so you don’t have to have been in the room to be part of it.
This session marked a milestone for more than the programme: it was also a public debut of the Landscape Alliance, the new identity uniting CIFOR-ICRAF’s landscape work under one name. CEO Eliane Ubalijoro opened the session by reflecting on what six years of integration have taught us — and why the world’s overlapping crises (biodiversity, food security, climate, livelihoods) can no longer be tackled ministry by ministry, sector by sector.
From there, LFF’s Kim Geheb and Valentina Robiglio walked through what actually happens when you try to manage a landscape as one integrated system instead of a collection of separate problems.
Some of what you’ll hear answered:
- Why is «integrated landscape management» harder than it sounds — and what does the landscape itself already know about integration that our institutions don’t?
- What actually drives lasting change: is it better technology, better funding, or something else entirely?
- Can power be traded? (Our programme’s blunt answer: yes — it’s called corruption, and every landscape w e worked in had to reckon with it.)
- What separates the handful of projects that thrived amid complexity from the ones that got stuck rigidly following their logframe?
- What is «the missing middle» — and why do so many well-intentioned interventions fall into the gap between local action and national policy?
- Multi-stakeholder platforms: genuine forums for redistributing power, or a well-meaning checkbox? The findings suggest it depends entirely on how they’re run.
- Why do local communities often keep doing something everyone — including them — knows isn’t working?
Whether you’re designing the next generation of landscape investments or just want to understand what six years and 23 projects can teach us about complexity, this is worth the watch.
▶️ Watch the full session recording or read the summary below.
Event summary
Following opening remarks from Bernard Crabbé of the European Commission, Éliane Ubalijoro, CEO of Landscape Alliance, reflected on the programme’s significance in the context of today’s interconnected global challenges. She argued that biodiversity loss, food security, climate resilience and economic development are experienced together in landscapes, yet are too often addressed through fragmented institutions, funding mechanisms and sectors. She also introduced Landscape Alliance’s new organisational identity, describing it as a reflection of the organisation’s long-standing commitment to integrated science, partnerships and landscape-scale action.
Kim Geheb, coordinator of the Landscapes for Our Future Central Component, then presented the findings of the programme’s global synthesis. Drawing on evidence gathered throughout six years of implementation, he explained how the programme sought not only to support projects technically, but also to deepen understanding of what integrated landscape management (ILM) means in practice across highly diverse ecological, political and institutional contexts.
Complementing this perspective, Valentina Robiglio described the comparative research undertaken across 15 landscapes to identify the conditions that enable integrated landscape management to succeed. Combining participatory assessment with quantitative analysis, the research found that while many projects successfully established shared visions and effective multi-stakeholder processes, institutionalisation and cross-sector integration remained among the most challenging aspects to achieve within the lifetime of individual projects. The analysis also highlighted the importance of adaptive project design, strong facilitation, local legitimacy and supportive governance in enabling long-term impact.
A central message emerging from the presentations was that landscapes themselves are already integrated systems; fragmentation lies primarily in the ways that people, institutions and sectors organise themselves. Rather than treating environmental degradation as purely a biophysical problem, the speakers argued that successful interventions must focus on the social, institutional and political practices that shape landscape outcomes. This shifts attention from landscapes as physical spaces to the behaviours, relationships and decision-making processes that influence how landscapes function over time.
The presentations also emphasised the importance of embracing complexity rather than attempting to simplify it. Rather than viewing complexity as a barrier, Kim Geheb argued that it is an inherent characteristic of landscapes that requires adaptive ways of working. Successful teams, he suggested, are those that continually test ideas, learn from experience and adjust their approaches as circumstances evolve, rather than relying on fixed plans and predetermined pathways.
Another recurring theme was the role of power, governance and institutional relationships in shaping landscape outcomes. The discussion explored how fragmentation can occur between sectors, levels of government, communities and knowledge systems, and how integrated landscape management depends on building stronger relationships across these boundaries. Questions from participants further examined the interaction between local ownership, government engagement and long-term institutional support in sustaining landscape change.
The event concluded with an extended discussion between participants in the room and online, exploring the practical implications of the programme’s findings. Rather than presenting integrated landscape management as a fixed methodology, the conversation reinforced it as an adaptive way of working that recognises landscapes as complex social-ecological systems and places continuous learning, collaboration and responsiveness at the centre of implementation.
