Integrated landscape approaches are regularly touted as a potential means to reconcile local socio-economic and global environmental challenges. The landscape represents an ideal scale at which to implement strategies and evaluate progress of initiatives designed towards more sustainable outcomes for both people and nature. As such, landscape approaches are increasingly acknowledged within global environmental policy discourse and have generated significant discussion and debate within the scientific and practitioner communities. However, despite this momentum, there remains a lack of consensus on: how to define a landscape approach; how to best apply the approach in practice; and what is the appropriate spatial scale for implementation and analysis. This Talk will highlight key elements of the landscape approach, how it builds on previous initiatives and how we can move forward from theory to practice.
