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.

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).