In the heart of the South American continent lies the Pantanal, an iconic wetland system teeming with life. Spanning over 69,000 square miles across Brazil, Paraguay, and Bolivia, this unique ecosystem is home to one of the world’s highest concentrations of wildlife. Beyond the marsh, more than 270 local communities rely on the surrounding area for cattle ranching and fishing, making the landscape an integral part of their daily lives.
Heralded in the region as an exemplary model for sustainable and resource management, this location proved to be the perfect backdrop for the launch of a bold new project aimed at expanding the capacity of local leaders to implement integrated landscape management (ILM) within their regions and unlocking access to more flexible funding sources using an integrated and expansive approach known as integrated landscape finance (ILF). Co-designed by 1000L co-convener EcoAgriculture Partners and the Latin American Model Forest Network and funded through the Government of Canada, the Forest Leaders for Integrated Landscape Management project offers a unique opportunity for standout landscape facilitators and developers to gain new skills through structured training and peer learning exchanges as well as receive monetary support for project implementation and individual mentorship throughout the process.
“This project is all about inclusive and multi-generational collaboration,” noted Bemmy Granados, EcoAgriculture Partners’ Director of Innovation for landscape management. “Our goal in bringing local leaders and their respective Model Forest Networks (MFNs) together is to ultimately strengthen their capacity to improve forest landscape resilience through the lens of integrated landscape management (ILM) and integrated landscape finance (ILF). ILM can be a daunting framework to work with, so we really sought to create an accessible, collaborative environment to learn and apply these approaches not just over the next few years but for the long term.”
Building a Foundation for Landscape Leadership
The most powerful ingredient to any integrated solution is the people, communities and institutions involved. The International Model Forest Network (IMFN) has a long history of establishing strong, multistakeholder partnerships aimed at preserving forest biodiversity and ecosystems while also supporting communities and local livelihoods. Their impressive work across 35 countries and over 180 million acres made for the perfect partner to design and implement a suite of open-source tools covering a wide range of themes related to ILM, including stakeholder mapping, narrative building, advocacy, and more.
The project’s first stage brought together 57 representatives from landscapes in nine different countries, including Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Perú, Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Puerto Rico. To kick off the initiative, leaders gathered in March to maximize a rare opportunity to put aside their overflowing to-do lists and focus on learning and growth. Several participants, many active within the International and Latin American Model Forest Networks, hold high-level positions across their organizations and rarely have space to examine how best to apply complex solutions to mounting environmental, social, and economic challenges. Most of their time is dedicated to dealing with imminent crises within their territories, from rapidly spreading wildfire and deforestation to human rights violations and food insecurity. While each rightfully requires attention, narrow, singular-focused solutions can only exacerbate these problems over time.
Not only did this workshop allow for dedicated time to examine the broader picture, but equally as meaningful, it provided the tools and roadmap for how to get there—all within the context of the landscape approach. For five days, participants immersed themselves in interactive and dynamic sessions on integrated landscape management (ILM) and integrated landscape finance facilitated by team members from the 1000L capacity strengthening and finance solutions teams and the Latin American Model Forest Network.
The sessions also pushed participants to dip their toes into the power of accessible and user-friendly digital tools. The team from 1000L partner Tech Matters joined to facilitate sessions on using and applying tools housed in Terraso, an open-source platform designed to provide a concrete set of accessible, adaptable digital tools to support landscape leaders in implementing ILM. While this was a relatively new concept for the more seasoned professionals, youth leaders in the space have been eager to incorporate new technologies into landscape management, especially tools such as drones that can help with territorial monitoring and digital storytelling and communication features such as Terraso’s StoryMaps.
Bridging Knowledge and Capacity Across Generations
Without the knowledge of the past, The group was a powerful mix of seasoned community leaders who have been spearheading landscape initiatives for decades and a new generation of youth leaders who are slowly being integrated into the landscape management process. Witnessing the knowledge exchange between different generations proved particularly inspiring, as each brought different perspectives, tools, and experiences to persistent and consistent landscape challenges.
This type of learning is a core element of this project and is at the heart of 1000L’s capacity-building initiative as a whole. The practice of ILM is similar to any other career pathway – it requires time for professional development, learning, connecting the dots, and growing as a practitioner and leader. Many of the selected group of landscape leaders are well-established leaders with a rich body of knowledge and experience. However, there is always room for growth, and many have never had the time and opportunity to get training focused on developing their Integrated Landscape Management and Finance capacities. One of the project’s primary goals is to support them in more effectively managing their forest landscapes by providing space to continue to learn, offering access to resources and tools to hone their skills, deepen their knowledge, share with others, and tap into a community of practice that will allow them to focus on things they don’t always have time to do.
Group learning was facilitated by a series of semi-structured and interactive workshops that pushed participants to reflect on how they are managing their territories and how they are engaging key stakeholders, and take initial steps towards better long-term financial planning and management. They used the ILM framework to discuss and share their landscape developments, governance platform, and partnership conditions, and exercise the building and presenting of a proposal to advance ILM in their specific contexts.
New Opportunities on the Horizon
Bringing these great minds is only the beginning. Together with the Latin America Model Forest Network and EcoAgriculture Partners teams, local leaders will continue to stay engaged with the material as part of an upcoming training series, Integrated Landscape Management and Finance: Strengthening Landscape Leaders of Latin America, made up of 12 participatory sessions that explore the five elements of the ILM framework in more detail. In parallel, 1000L and LAMFN teams are collaboratively building a research agenda that carries forth a series of five applied ILM-related studies with a group of research fellows selected from Model Forests. One thing is already apparent: in the hands of these landscape leaders, the future of forests is bright.
