Given the diversity of active institutions and stakeholders in a landscape, and the difficulties in ensuring inclusive decision-making, evaluating landscape governance can help surface and address underlying issues. In the context of two protected area landscapes in Uganda, where landscape approaches are being implemented through a wider project on landscape governance, we analyse stakeholder perceptions of inclusive decision-making and then use this evaluation to stimulate dialogue amongst stakeholder groups in each landscape. We ask, how can capturing, analysing, and collaboratively applying people’s perceptions address inclusive decision-making in landscape governance? We collected and analysed perceptions using SenseMaker^®, a software package that enables analysis of micronarratives (stories) from the field based on how respondents classify their own stories, using triads, dyads, stones, and multiple-choice questions. This self-categorisation by the respondent reduces bias in the analysis and allows the micronarrative to be cross-examined in a variety of ways when analysed using Sensemaker. This analysis created an integrated view of the stakeholder’s perceptions about inclusive decision-making in landscape governance. The results show large portions of the respondents feel their voices are neglected, and management of the landscape is poor in Mount Elgon, while in Agoro-Agu, it is the opposite trend. During a community feedback process, reasons for these trends were discussed and solutions proposed. Some of the underlying factors include historical relationships with park authorities and displacement during park creation. To more precisely answer our research question, one could have extended stays in the communities studied in these landscapes, using ethnographic methods including interviews and participant observation; nonetheless, our method, including the feedback process, was an innovative and important way to confront our findings with the informants directly and foster collaborative action. We conclude that understanding people’s perceptions, including through participatory feedback, can significantly inform and improve management decisions, help resolve conflicts, and facilitate dialogue between different stakeholders in the landscape.

Community Resource Management Areas (CREMAs) in Ghana combine conservation and development objectives and were introduced in the year 2000. In some cases, they have connected collectors of shea (Vitellaria paradoxa) nuts with certified organic world markets, which can be understood as a ‘market-based’ approach to conservation. This paper examines how the benefits of this approach are distributed and argues that shea land formalization is crucial to this process. It makes this argument by drawing on interviews within two communities bordering Mole National Park. One community accepted to engage with, and benefitted from this approach, while the other did not. The paper analyzes narratives from different actors involved regarding why and how the market-based approach was accepted or rejected. It shows that, contrary to the neoliberal principles that underlie market-based conservation, a utility maximization rationale did not predominantly influence the (non-)engagement with this conservation approach. Instead, it was the history of land relations between communities and the state that influenced the decisions of the communities. We highlight the role of traditional authorities and NGOs brokering this process and unpack who in the communities profited and who was left out from benefits from this market-based conservation initiative.

Background and aims– Old-growth savannas in Africa are impacted by fire, have endemic and geoxylic suffrutices, and are understudied. This paper explores the Parc National des Plateaux Batéké (PNPB) in Gabon and the impact of fire on its flora to understand if it is an old-growth savanna. It presents 1) a vascular plant checklist, including endemic species and geoxylic suffrutices and 2) an analysis of the impact of fire on the savanna herbaceous flora, followed by recommendations for fire management to promote plant diversity.Material and methods– 1,914 botanical collections from 2001–2019 collected by the authors and others were extracted from two herbaria databases in 2021 to create the checklist. The impact of fire was explored through a three season plot-based inventory of plant species (notably forbs and geoxylic suffrutices) in five annually, dry-season burned study areas located at 600 m in elevation. A two-factor ANOVA was conducted across two burn treatments and three season treatments.Key results– The area has a vascular flora of 615 taxa. Seven species are endemic to the Plateaux Batéké forest-savanna mosaic. Seventeen species are fire-dependent geoxylic suffrutices, attesting to the ancient origins of these savannas. Burning promotes fire-dependent species.Conclusion– The PNPB aims to create a culturally-adapted fire management plan. The combination of customary fire and fire-adapted species in the savanna creates a unique ancient forest-savanna mosaic in Central Africa that merits protection while recognising the role that the Batéké-Alima people have in shaping and governing this landscape.

Adaptation to climate change is a social–ecological process: it is not solely a result of natural processes or human decisions but emerges from multiple relations within social systems, within ecological systems and between them. We propose a novel analytical framework to evaluate social–ecological relations in nature-based adaptation, encompassing social (people–people), ecological (nature–nature) and social–ecological (people–nature) relations. Applying this framework to 25 case studies, we analyse the associations among these relations and identify archetypes of social–ecological adaptation. Our findings revealed that adaptation actions with more people–nature relations mobilize more social and ecological relations. We identified four archetypes, with distinct modes of adaptation along a gradient of people–nature interaction scores, summarized as: (i) nature control; (ii) biodiversity-based; (iii) ecosystem services-based; and (iv) integrated approaches. This study contributes to a nuanced understanding of nature-based adaptation, highlighting the importance of integrating diverse relations across social and ecological systems. Our findings offer valuable insights for informing the design and implementation of adaptation strategies and policies. This article is part of the discussion meeting issue ‘Bending the curve towards nature recovery: building on Georgina Mace's legacy for a biodiverse future’.

Context: We describe how large landscape-scale conservation initiatives involving local communities, NGOs and resource managers have engaged with landscape scientists with the goal of achieving landscape sustainability. We focus on two landscapes where local people, practitioners and landscape ecologists have co-produced knowledge to design conservation interventions. Objective: We seek to understand how landscape ecology can engage with practical landscape management to contribute to managing landscapes sustainably. Methods: We focus on two large tropical landscapes: the Sangha Tri-National landscape (Cameroon, Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic) and the Batéké-Léfini Landscape (Gabon and Republic of Congo). We evaluate (1) a participatory method used in the Sangha Tri-National landscape that embeds interdisciplinary researchers and practitioners within a landscape to apply transdisciplinary learning to landscape conservation and (2) a participatory landscape zoning method where interdisciplinary teams of conservation practitioners analyse local land and resource use in the Batéké-Léfini landscape. Results: We find that landscape ecology’s tradition of understanding the historical context of resource use can inform landscape conservation practice and natural resource mapping. We also find that the Sangha Group provides an example for landscape ecology on how to integrate local people and their knowledge to better understand and influence landscape processes. Conclusions: Place-based engagement as well as the uptake of co-produced knowledge by policy makers are key in enabling sustainable landscapes. Success occurs when researchers, local communities and resource managers engage directly with landscape processes.