Introduction and basic propositions

This book is about how landscape approaches can address the challenges of sustainable development. It explores the opportunities and challenges for developing countries to simultaneously achieve social, environmental and economic objectives at the landscape level through multifunctionality. It challenges the ‘one-place-one-function’ concept of specialization. Current interest in reducing the negative impacts of climate change, and slowing down its progression, leads logically to landscape-level interventions, but in interaction with many ongoing processes and learning opportunities. More specifically, the book aims to review conceptual understandings of landscapes and landscape approaches, as well as synthesize knowledge and experiences largely from across the developing world. Looking at landscapes within the context of climate change, this book provides a set of concepts, tools, incentives, past experiences and practices to further operationalize the concepts of integrated landscape approaches, and climate-smart landscapes in practice. Written for researchers, professionals and policymakers alike, it moves from theory to practice providing a toolkit for implementation of multifunctional landscapes