Multi-scale evaluation with policy makers

Main authors: Cecilia De Ita, Lindsay C. Stringer, Luuk Fleskens, Diana Sietz
Contributing authors: Ioannis K. Tsanis, Ioannis N. Daliakopoulos, Ioanna Panagea, Michalakis Christoforou, Giovanni Quaranta, Rosanna Salvia, Sandra Valente, Cristina Ribeiro, Cláudia Fernandes, Oscar González-Pelayo, Jan Jacob Keizer, Alejandro Valdecantos, V. Ramón Vallejo and Susana Bautista
Editor: Jane Brandt
Source document: De Ita, C. et al. (2017) Report on multi-scale evaluation of CASCADE's management principles and grazing model scenarios with stakeholders and policy makers. CASCADE Project Deliverable 8.3 69 pp

 

Land conservation and natural resource management are currently at the forefront of sustainability challenges, particularly due to environmental threats and climate change. Regions like the Mediterranean are particularly vulnerable due to their complex socio-environmental dynamics, which are under pressure from soil erosion, desertification, land abandonment, overgrazing and forest fires.

CASCADE’s research has yielded a number of outcomes, including a thorough insight into the physio-environmental ecology of the European Mediterranean Drylands, and a series of tools and measures to improve land management. Stakeholders’ resilience and adaptation were also explored in »Adaptation strategies of local land users, which presents stakeholders’ perceptions of current ecosystem changes and potential opportunities to respond to changes.

Study site stakeholder workshops

In this section of CASCADiS we evaluate stakeholders’ views of the land management measures generated by CASCADE and tailored to each study site, using a participatory multi-scale evaluation process. Assessment followed a participatory approach to capture the wide range of perceptions and views involved in the management of complex socio-environmental landscapes.

For more details see »Stakeholder workshops to evaluate SLM guidelines and scenario analysis

Six stakeholder workshops were carried out across project study sites. Local stakeholders in each site discussed their perceptions about the land management principles developed by CASCADE, as well as the barriers and opportunities to implement them in the current socio-economic, environmental and policy context. Study sites were differentiated according to the main degradation issues: Overgrazing (Crete, Cyprus and Italy), land abandonment (Spain and Italy), forest fire (Spain and Italy, Portugal). In the grazing sites, Crete and Cyprus, stakeholders also evaluated the scenarios and model outputs described in »Costs and benefits of interventions and »Improving SLM using land management scenario analysis.

For more details see

»Várzea, Portugal: Stakeholder workshop to evaluate SLM guidelines
»Albatera & Ayora, Spain: Stakeholder workshop to evaluate SLM guidelines
»Castelsaraceno, Italy: Stakeholder workshop to evaluate SLM guidelines
»Messara, Greece: Stakeholder workshop to evaluate SLM guidelines and scenario analysis
»Randi Forest, Cyprus: Stakeholder workshop to evaluate SLM guidelines and scenario analysis

Results highlights
Stakeholders across all sites agreed with most of CASCADE’s management principles, but their perceptions about how challenging or feasible these were to implement diverged for each context. It was found that in grazing areas stakeholders agreed with most of the principles, but mentioned that a number of economic subsidies and incentives were needed for future implementation. In the forest fire context, stakeholders agreed with the effectiveness of the principles, but discussed the socio-economic barriers of implementation and the potential ways to overcome them. In the land abandonment context, the approach to designing principles was discussed. As land abandonment was perceived as a cross-cutting/overarching issue product of a complex socio-environmental dynamic, the feasibility and applicability of the management principles were discussed within the generalities of the perceived socio-economic context of the stakeholders, rather than focusing on the environmental effectiveness or use of the principles. Additional forest fire and post forest fire management principles and recommendations for land management were identified by stakeholders in Italy and Portugal.

Policy forum

To explore CASCADE principles and research input in national and international land management agendas a policy forum was convened involving international, national and selected local stakeholders from the study sites. The policy forum was held in Matera, Italy in February 2017, and included presentations from CASCADE researchers about the project’s findings on land abandonment, forest fires and grazing research, presentations by policy makers about relevant policies at EU and international level, and a roundtable discussion on research, policy making and sustainable land management at the study sites.

Policy interview with Pandi Zdruli

Interview with Pandi Zdruli

Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Bari

Policy interview with Victor Castillo

Interview with Victor Castillo

UNCCD Secretariat: Science, Technology and Implementation

 

Results highlights
The focus on applied research based on solving problems of societal concern, was considered one of CASCADE’s strengths by participants. Policy makers also highlighted the importance of the outreach, engagement and dissemination tasks. They noted that links to policy and application allowed the project to go beyond the traditional basic science approach and provided the chance to feed into changes that could benefit policy and society. The dialogue also allowed land managers to communicate with policy makers, so they could reflect that the requirements of SLM go beyond direct land management measures. The workshop was overall felt to provide a valuable space for learning and sharing ideas between different stakeholders groups from across the study sites.

Related articles

List of articles in category Multi-scale evaluation with policy makers
Title
Improving SLM using land management scenario analysis
Stakeholder workshops to evaluate SLM guidelines and scenario analysis
CASCADE Policy forum
Multi-scale evaluation of SLM guidelines and scenarios: discussion and conclusions
References
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