To meet food security and development goals while protecting its natural resource base, Africa urgently needs an integrated landscapes approach to policy making.

During Landscapes for People, Food and Nature in Africa conference, World Agroforestry Centre scientist, Joseph Tanui, outlined how a landscapes approach “mirrors the heterogeneity, complexity and dynamism of African landscapes”.

Policies will have to have a bias towards rural areas without ignoring urban areas, they will need to closely consider land tenure and be embedded in a rights-based, gender- inclusive and poverty-eradication framework, said speakers during a session on opportunities, challenges and options for national policies to support landscape management in Africa. They also emphasized the need for policies to center around people and allow for market and financial incentives to ensure people realize the benefits of sustainable practices.

The need for engaging people at the grassroots was seen as essential to effective policies in integrated landscape management and to localize international and regional instruments and programs through strengthening local-level institutions.

Read the full story: Managing landscapes in Africa: from ‘evil forests’ to a half-urban, half-rural people