11 diciembre 2024
The Blueprint for mature landscape initiatives
In October 2024, Proforest was part of a coalition of organisations led by ISEAL which co-published a set of Core Criteria for Mature Landscape Initiatives. While there has been a lot of interest in landscape initiatives as a means of delivering multiple sustainability and livelihoods goals, the need for these Core Criteria has become abundantly clear, as there was a strong desire for alignment on what is considered a landscape initiative.
“With increasing interest and engagement in landscape initiatives, it is critical that all stakeholders have a simple and consistent understanding of the core elements of a mature landscape initiative.” Source: Core Criteria for Mature Landscape Initiatives |
This lack of alignment has hindered communication and subsequent fundraising for landscape initiatives, with little clarity about what is good practice, what should be the minimum criteria and how to measure progress and make claims related to landscape initiatives.
The Core Criteria have filled a gap and provide a clear set of four criteria that characterise a mature landscape initiative: scale, multi-stakeholder governance process or platform; collective goals and actions; and collective monitoring.
Building on Proforest’s practical experience in landscape initiatives around the world, we see that most landscape initiatives are still facing gaps to deliver sustained positive outcomes for people and nature. Many landscape initiatives are ‘stuck’ in the early stages of development (the ‘readiness’ phase), often lacking the funding or strategy to move beyond project-based activities and deliver positive outcomes at scale. Effectively they show maturity and investment gaps.
Moving landscape and jurisdictional initiatives (LJIs) from activities and engagement to sustained positive outcomes for nature and people
We see a need to support landscape initiatives to move towards maturity (i.e. meet the core criteria) and to address the finance and investment gap. The Blueprint for mature landscape initiatives has been developed to guide this process. It has two components:
- a framework that mirrors the Core Criteria with an additional component on Funding & Strategy, as we see that as an essential component for delivering sustained outcomes, and
- a process to engage stakeholders in the landscape, to align individual actions and create a locally-led and adapted landscape initiative.
The Blueprint is not intended as new approach or tool, rather it builds on already existing guidance and experience.
As part of our support to the Consumer Goods Forum Forest Positive Coalition (CGF FPC), the Coalition is piloting the Blueprint for mature landscapes with implementers of landscape initiatives in Indonesia and Brazil. These pilots aim to sense-check the Blueprint components and their applicability to different contexts, while also kickstarting the process for alignment between company and local stakeholder-led initiatives in the pilot locations.
In Indonesia, the pilots have been conducted in Aceh Tamiang, Siak and Sintang, in partnership with Lingkar Temu Kabupaten Lestari (LTKL) to understand how landscape initiatives can be linked to district government priorities through multi-stakeholder forums.
In Brazil, steps towards alignment of private sector, finance sector, government representatives and landscape experts and implementers are underway. In November, stakeholders met to co-develop their Bueprint for mature landscape initiatives, promote cross-learning between them, and collaboration with local stakeholders, funders and other key actors. This session focused on sharing lessons from the landscape Blueprint pilots in Western Mato Grosso initiative and Sustainable Calves Program in Juruena Valley. Through deep dives into the Blueprint components, participants sought to identify strengths and development needs for six soy and cattle landscape initiatives.
The Core Criteria integrated in the Blueprint components provide a basis for consistent monitoring and reporting across landscapes. Proforest has been working with SourceUp and the CGF Forest Positive Coalition to provide a transparent and public platform for brands and retailers to transparently communicate and monitor the forest positive impacts of their landscape engagement. Integrating the Core Criteria into this platform means that there is a common mechanism for landscape initiatives to report their progress towards maturity.
As we build experience from the Blueprint landscape pilots for the work with the CGF Forest Positive Coalition, Proforest will develop more in-depth guidance on implementation of the Blueprint, planned for early 2025.