Context - Research Questions - (Landscape)

Agriculture in Madagascar (30% of GDP and 80% of the active population) is carried out in large drainage basin networks that combine lowland rice farming, agriculture, and livestock farming on the hillsides and forest exploitation in summit areas. Stagnation and even decrease in agricultural production, environmental degradation, and loss of biodiversity characterize many regions.

To address the challenge of maintaining agricultural production and safeguarding biodiversity, dP F&B has begun to reflect on the "landscape approach" (see Sayer et al (2013) & Milder et al (2014) ^[1]), which aims to provide tools and concepts for land allocation and management in order to achieve social, economic, and environmental goals. The landscape approach focuses on areas where agriculture, mining, and other productive land uses compete with environmental and biodiversity conservation actions. This type of approach requires a combination of cross-sector and multifunctional approaches.

The first reflections made it possible to propose two general hypotheses that give an operational framework to this topic:

1. For a given landscape, cross-sector (agriculture, livestock, forest, etc.) and multifunctional (production, environmental protection, tourism, etc.) approaches combined with a participatory and prospective approach make it possible to develop economic activities while preserving the environment within drainage basins.
2. The involvement of stakeholders in the project management improves their capacity for concerted and sustainable management of the landscape.

Subsequent reflections lead to research questions such as:

How can we understand the socio-ecological processes involved in landscape dynamics?

What are the consequences of these dynamics for ecosystem services/disservices, on which the living conditions of rural populations depend?

Operationally, it is necessary to understand these dynamics and their consequences in order to propose adapted support actions. There is still a great deal of uncertainty about both the processes that drive landscape change and the effect of landscape structure and composition on ecosystem services/disservices.

All of these considerations enabled a relatively exhaustive definition of the expected results that this topic could generate:

RESULTS OF RESEARCH ASSOCIATED WITH THE PRODUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE, SUCH AS:

• Highlighting the interactions between the different ecological, economic, and social components of the landscape.• Support of stakeholders in the drawing up of technical management plans for agricultural, forestry, and grazing resources, taking into account the interactions between the different components of the landscape. 
• Support of stakeholders in the drawing up of technical management plans for agricultural, forestry, and grazing resources, taking into account the interactions between the different components of the landscape.
• Characterization of the cross-sector collaboration allowed by Madagascar’s institutional and legal framework for implementation of integrated landscape management.
• Modeling of landscape functioning, including the production of ecosystem services and disservices.
• Ex-ante evaluation of proposed development actions.

RESEARCH RESULTS RELATED TO METHODOLOGY, SUCH AS:

• Innovative approaches in remote sensing to characterize "fuzzy landscapes", presenting a continuum of vegetation cover.
• Survey methods to characterize the diversity of ecosystem services perceived by local people in relation to different elements of the landscape and their interaction.
• Approaches to characterize the institutions and networks of stakeholders involved in the practices of use and management of the different elements of the landscape.
• Methodological elements to implement participatory project management in a development program.
• Methodological elements to support and set up consultation platforms involving local authorities, technical organizations, and institutional bodies at the scale of a landscape.
• Methodological elements of multicriteria and participatory landscape diagnostics allowing: a good level of knowledge of agrarian, grazing, and forest systems and their evolution (stakeholders, mode of operation, performance, interrelations); prioritization (and/or weighting) of problems/constraints,
• Methodological elements for forecasting with local stakeholders to identify levers of action, coherence between project objectives and local objectives, ways of compromise.
• Methodology of joint production of payment schemes for sustainable environmental services adapted to rural settings in Madagascar.

RESULTS IN TERMS OF DEVELOPMENT, SUCH AS:

• Analysis of changes in production structures and factors allowing improvement of food safety and income.
• Prospective landscape analysis for the production of plausible medium-term scenarios.
• Action plans for the concerted use of resources (land, water, biomass) established from the prospective scenarios defined via the consultation platforms.
• Support for setting up concerted management of landscapes.
• Helping farms develop and grow in terms of food safety and risk response.
• Proposed laws for consistency of sectoral, legal frameworks at the national level.
• Implementation of public actions and procedural instruments designed to strengthen synergies between the various compartments of the landscape (payment for environmental services, municipal bylaws, certifications, agreements, etc.) built jointly during the project.
• Proposals for legal and regulatory provisions to ensure consistency of sectoral, institutional, and legal frameworks at the national level.

All the expected results highlight the wealth of research activities that can be implemented for landscape issues. They also underscore the value for the dP F&B of defining its R&D so as to remain focused, given its human resources.

^[1] SAYER, J., SUNDERLAND, T., GHAZOUL, J., PFUND, J. L., SHEIL, D., MEIJAARD, E., ET AL. (2013). TEN PRINCIPLES FOR A LANDSCAPE APPROACH TO RECONCILING AGRICULTURE, CONSERVATION, AND OTHER COMPETING LAND-USES. PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE USA, 110, 8349–8356.

MILDER J C, HART A K, DOBIE P AND MINAI J AND ZALESKI C (2014) INTEGRATED LANDSCAPE INITIATIVES FOR AFRICANAGRICULTURE, DEVELOPMENT, AND CONSERVATION: A REGION-WIDE ASSESSMENT. WORLD DEVELOPMENT VOL. 54,PP. 68–80.