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The European Union’s Landscapes for Our Future programme supports 22 integrated landscape management projects across 19 countries and 3 sub-regions across the Global South.

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South America and the Caribbean

Africa

Asia

Guardians of the green: local stewardship of a global treasure

Mauritius dazzles with emerald peaks and turquoise seas — but its “green” landscapes hide centuries of ecological loss. Nearly 90% of native forests are gone, leaving Mauritians with the urgent responsibility of stewarding biodiversity of global significance.

When you land in Mauritius, the first impression is one of dazzling beauty: emerald mountains rising above a turquoise lagoon, sugarcane swaying in the breeze, and pockets of deep green forest. As you step out of the airport, the first sign that greets you proudly proclaims: “Welcome to Mauritius – a Green Island.” Looking out towards the horizon, all you see are rolling green landscapes stretching to the sea. But it is a trick of the eye: these are not native forests, but vast expanses of sugarcane plantations. The island’s rich natural heritage has been reshaped over centuries, and beneath the surface of this apparent greenness lies a deeper story.

A story of centuries of ecological transformation. Since human arrival, Mauritius has lost almost 90% of its native forests, much of it cleared for sugarcane and settlements. Invasive plants and animals now dominate many landscapes, and the once-thriving populations of endemic species have been reduced to fragile fragments. It is this history that gives urgency to today’s efforts to restore and steward the island’s unique, globally relevant biodiversity.

The Mauritius from Ridge to Reef (R2R) project has taken up this challenge with a holistic vision: linking mountains, rivers, forests, and reefs into one continuous fabric of restoration. From weeding invasive plants on steep slopes, to encouraging community apiculture, to protecting coastal wetlands and coral reefs, the project is premised on the idea that resilience is only possible when land and sea are managed together.

Restoration, however, is not only about plants and trees – it is about people. The conservation space in Mauritius has many actors: NGOs, government departments, and ministries whose mandates sometimes overlap. Collaboration among them must be strengthened. Restoration itself is a natural integrator: degraded land is found on coastal shores, within forests, and across agricultural landscapes. But for these efforts to truly benefit biodiversity, connectivity, and resilience, ecosystems – and the ministries responsible for them – need better integration. 

Recognizing this, CIFOR-ICRAF this past month worked alongside partners to support a consultation workshop for the new Biodiversity Stewardship Platform (BSP). 

Over three dozen participants gathered, representing a rich cross-section of Mauritian society: government ministries, NGOs, research institutions, youth representatives, private sector leaders, and local community organizations. Together, they grappled with a simple but profound question: how can Mauritius move from fragmented projects toward an integrated, long-term platform for stewardship?

The conversations were lively and candid. Stakeholders spoke of the need for a common vision, one that balances conservation with development, and puts equity at the heart of decision-making. Breakout groups wrestled with the design of the BSP — its governance structure, its functions, and how it could build credibility through transparency and inclusive participation. Ideas flowed: a communications hub to tell Mauritius’s biodiversity story; a knowledge-sharing system to capture lessons; and mechanisms for monitoring progress, so that commitments translate into results.

Workshop outcomes

By the close of the workshop, three major outcomes had emerged:

  1. A shared vision for the BSP as a national hub for coordination, learning, and action on biodiversity stewardship.
  2. Agreement on a draft structure, including a steering group and multi-stakeholder working groups to carry forward priority themes.
  3. Commitment to collaboration, with participants voicing readiness to contribute data, align projects, and champion the BSP across their networks.

There was a sense of possibility in the room — that Mauritius, despite its small size, can pioneer innovative governance for restoration and biodiversity.

We cannot afford to work in silos any longer. The Platform is where our efforts will finally meet.

BSP workshop participant

Looking ahead, the BSP will aim to knit together the many threads of biodiversity work across the island. Its ambition is to become a space where government, civil society, communities, and businesses co-create solutions, exchange lessons, and hold each other accountable. If successful, the Platform will not only accelerate restoration outcomes but also embed stewardship into the social fabric of Mauritius – ensuring that the island’s globally important natural heritage is cherished and safeguarded for the world. 

Mauritius’s story, then, is one of both loss and renewal: centuries of degradation now giving rise to bold new approaches. The Ridge to Reef project shows what’s possible in practice; the BSP offers a governance model to sustain it. Together, they chart a hopeful course for an island that has long been defined by its nature, and whose future depends on it.

Landscapes in Practice: Stakeholder Identification and Analysis

Landscape condition and sustainability depends on what its stakeholders are doing. ILM practitioners cannot, therefore, avoid considering stakeholder activities. This Landscapes in Practice paper provides an overview of the key concepts and the tools and resources available for learning more.
LIP Stakeholder identification 241114 interactiveDownload

Landscape condition and sustainability depends on what its stakeholders are doing. ILM practitioners cannot, therefore, avoid considering stakeholder activities. The problems exhibited in landscapes emerge out of these activities, so implementing processes that change stakeholder behaviours and practices is central to ILM considerations. It is generally accepted that the higher the level of stakeholder engagement, the more likely an intervention is to succeed, and the more likely its effects will be sustainable.

Landscapes, it should be noted, are complex –and stakeholders are a source of much of this complexity because of their multiple, and often divergent, needs and interests (i.e., to exploit or conserve resources), rights (formal and customary) and levels of legitimacy, dependence on resources, power and influence (economic and political), knowledge, preferences and values. Stakeholders often have competing goals that require mediation to balance trade-offs (if an initiative is promoting changed behaviour) and are embedded within social networks, interactions and responses. If landscapes are to be managed in integrated ways, stakeholders and their various interests must be a major consideration in the design of ILM interventions.

Key messages

  • Stakeholder engagement is a precondition to Integrated Landscape Management (ILM) success. The higher the level of engagement, the greater the likelihood of success and sustainability.
  • Stakeholder identification and analysis is complicated by diversity amongst stakeholders, which emerges from variable interests, different types of knowledge, and contexts. Most stakeholder engagement, identification and analysis approaches try to reveal and understand this complexity.
  • Stakeholder analysis is strategic. It allows interventions to determine who they should engage with to succeed and which inter-stakeholder relations should be targeted for attention.
  • The ‘strategic relevance’ of stakeholders is determined by the degree to which they are judged to influence a project’s success.
  • There are usually competing or contradictory interests among stakeholders, often expressed as conflict. The presence of conflict amongst stakeholders should be assumed from the outset and can represent a significant risk to intervention success.
  • The strategies used to engage with (and between) stakeholders will reflect their strategic relevance and can be brainstormed and deliberated through the development of a Theory of Change.
  • Engaging with stakeholders calls for the deployment of ‘soft-skills’ such as mediation, facilitation, convening and negotiation.
  • Stakeholder relevance and relations will change over the course of a project intervention. As such, stakeholder analysis is not restricted to the beginning of an initiative, but is necessary throughout its duration.
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Landscapes in Practice: Iterative learning and adaptation

Integrated Landscape Management (ILM) entails dealing with complexity and uncertainty, of which the interests of diverse stakeholders are an important part. Management strategies such as Adaptive Management and Collaborative Management have emerged to address these challenges and have been operationalized as an approach called Adaptive Collaborative Management (ACM).
LIP Iterative Learning & Adaptation 240905Download

This Landscapes in Practice edition aims to offer an overview of the common themes and concepts across these approaches, identifying lessons and proposing ways in which they can contribute to an ILM process. It will also synthesize steps to incorporate iterative learning processes and adaptation into ILM-focused programmes and projects. Ultimately, our goal is to explain key concepts and identify essential steps for practitioners who employ an ILM approach to develop the critical pillars of iterative learning and adaptation within their project cycle.

Key messages

  • Iterative and adaptive learning are seen as key characteristics of effective Integrated Landscape Management (ILM) initiatives, yet ILM implementers may need support to operationalize iterative learning and adaptation in their programmes.
  • Given that landscapes are highly complex and dynamic socio-ecological systems fraught with uncertainty over how they function, interact and react, stakeholders involved in management should adopt a ‘learning by doing’ approach to identify best practices and improve over time.
  • Adaptive management is an approach that treats management as an experiment that tests interventions based on available information, and evaluates outcomes to adjust future management decisions and actions.
  • By convening stakeholders to work together towards a common goal (to collaborate), and by promoting social learning (developing a shared understanding within groups), ILM facilitators can encourage an iterative approach to planning and decision-making to better manage complexity in a changing world with many unknowns.
  • There are four steps that can assist in operationalizing this concept in ILM: stakeholder engagement, problem/objective definition, action planning, and monitoring/reflection (then back to action).
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