Response options across the landscape

This chapter presents potential landscape-scale responses that attempt to reconcile the oft-competing demands for agriculture, forestry and other land uses. While there is no single configuration of land-uses in any landscape that can optimise the different outcomes that may be prevalent within a particular landscape, there are options for understanding and negotiation for the inherent trade-offs that characterise such outcomes. With increasing pressure on biodiversity and ecosystem services across many landscapes from the growing impact of human activities, hard choices have to be made about how landscapes could and should be managed to optimise outcomes. In a context where views on landscape-scale management options are often deeply entrenched and conflicts of interest are difficult to reconcile, consensus on what constitutes "success" may be difficult to achieve. Political economy and wider governance issues have often meant that a theoretically optimal landscape is unrealistic or unachievable on the ground. However, in this chapter we attempt to provide an over-arching framework for landscape approaches and how such approaches can contribute to both conservation and the achievement of food security and nutrition goals.