LARMAR · Land Use and Resource Management at the Agricultural - Forest Frontier
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2017-05-02 → 2019-05-01
- EU contribution
- €183,455
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Land Use and Resource Management at the Agricultural - Forest Frontier
In this Fellowship, I aimed to explore the inter-relationships between land use activities for commodity production and conservation initiatives in order to determine how sustainable land use/ practices can be created and strengthened over time. The LARMAR project addressed these issues, which are complex and interrelated, characterised by feedbacks and lie at the interface of the study of human-environment interactions. A major driver of tropical deforestation is agriculture, as well as land speculation, driven by local and international demand. Land use and agricultural practices are the consequence of a variety of interrelated social, economic and environmental factors, yet interpretations of how these factors interact to stimulate deforestation vary widely. The aim of the LAMAR project was thus to compare ‘top-down’ with ‘bottom-up’ approaches to land use initiatives/approaches and the governance processes associated with these. LAMAR developed an in-depth study through the objectives: explore synergies, conflicts and trade-offs between selected land use practices, e.g. smallholder (but not exclusively) farming systems and conservation, and their ability to deliver equitable outcomes in the regions they are implemented. Targeted fieldwork was carried out in two locations - based on a scoping phase - to investigate smallholder cocoa and oil palm production in Ghana and forest management in Indonesia. To understand these aspects, the project considered the discourses, practices and social relationships around land use which were unfolding within the 'realpolitik' of a studied region and looked at the potential for ‘hybrid’ policies (public/private). The project contributed to research on the development of sustainable forestry, commodity production and local livelihoods. It can aid in policy formation and sustainable business practices for the regions under study and beyond. In addition, the record of publications, transfer of knowledge and the overall research objectives of the project were fully achieved with some adjustment in timelines– as is expected in academic research – which reflected the progress of the work and the availability and constraints of researchers involved.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
In this fellowship, I aim to explore the trade-off and synergies between conservation and commodity production through an Ecosystem Services (ES) lens in order to determine how sustainable land use practices can be created and strengthened over time, and to extend knowledge on ES within broader land use, and natural capital research. I will carry out targeted fieldwork to investigate the following research lines: 1) how ES are defined and conceptualised as commodities and how these relate to more established ‘land’ commodities. This research line will include ES to humans, but also factors causing ecosystem change that can affect the long-term resilience of such ecosystems, by examining selected drivers of land use change. Research line 2) relates to the impact of appropriation of land for commodities (e.g., the demand for cash crops such as soy, biofuels and land used for livestock production or conservation) on local communities, and the global economy and policies that may drive (the current or any) 'land grabs'. I will take into account the discourse, practices and social relationships around land use that are currently unfolding within the 'realpolitik' of a studied region. These phenomena are highly debated yet remain poorly understood and should become key analytical domains for academics insofar that they are related to broader processes of economic globalization, biodiversity loss and climate change. The findings will be complementary to climate change mitigation efforts and feed into policy processes around securing food security, with an objective to not only contribute to sustainable land use practices but to promote the livelihood opportunities and environmental quality of (often) marginalized communities living in and around contested land.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD · OxfordCoordinatorUnited Kingdom
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union