A blog post by Peter Bridgewater, Associate Editor for People & Nature.

Read Interdisciplinary insights into navigating the maze of landscape multifunctionality by Hanna Fors and colleagues from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences at our Open Access journal.

…and read the Plain Language Summary here at Relational Thinking.

Read What monarch butterfly waystation names can reveal about program participants by Emily Geest from the Oklahoma Zoo and colleagues from the Universities of Kansas and Oklahoma at our Open Access journal.

…and read the Plain Language Summary here at Relational Thinking.

Two recent papers accepted for publication in People and Nature are a review and synthesis on Interdisciplinary insights into navigating the maze of landscape multifunctionality by Hanna Fors and colleagues from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and What monarch butterfly waystation names can reveal about program participants by Emily Geest from the Oklahoma Zoo and colleagues from the Universities of Kansas and Oklahoma. These seemingly different papers have much in common, underlining the value of the People and Nature approach. The most important commonality is the idea of sense of place. A sense of place is about how people identify with an area because of living in, or visiting regularly, that area.

The most important aspects of sense of place come from social or cultural meanings tied to individual locations. Obviously, this has strong adherence in Indigenous communities, or local communities that have lived in one place for centuries if not millennia, but we all have our own sense of place, be it our balcony, garden, holiday memory etc. In understanding multifunctional landscapes, a key question is how to manage the trade-offs and synergies inherent in landscapes that are required to produce multiple functions and services. While such matters are typically science-based, there is an inherent importance of understanding the current and future socio-ecological challenges in creating and managing multi-functional landscapes – a point recognised by Fors et al.

Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) are the poster child for declining species, as they disappear from a migration noticed in clouds of insects to stragglers now making the extraordinary annual migration. But the food plant for the Monarch, along the way (milkweed, Asclepis) provides support for both caterpillar and adult stages through leaves and nectar respectively but is also suffering population declines. Monarch watch is an organisation based in Kansas at the university of Kansas and has been instrumental in seeking peoples support for developing “waystations.”  Waystations are places where milkweed is introduced to support Monarch populations. The waystations can be any size, and many are suburban gardens, although some are larger conservation reserves.

The paper looks not so much at the ecological role of the waystations but at what the names given to them by their “owners” reveals. They conclude by noting “Overall, waystation names have the ability to reflect personal meanings, community attachments, and cultural insights. By creating and installing waystations, these habitats can become permanent features of a human-curated landscape, which is beneficial as the creation of waystations, particularly backyard gardens, are frequently suggested by conservationists … to help slow or stop the decline of monarchs”.  Their use of the term “human-curated landscape” leads directly to idea of a multi-functional landscape.

Understanding that there is not one understanding of multifunctional landscapes, Fors and colleagues have made a good contribution in this field through developing an analysis support tool. This tool is a set of key questions designed to make the users think how to promote a sustainable approach to landscape management. Users of the tool begin by defining landscape problems and reflecting on solutions. These solutions arise from assessments of current landscape functions and their connectivity. Crucially, understanding the needs of those who live, work, or visit the particular landscape is vital to the process – very much thinking through the sense of place inherent in landscape, multifunctional or not.

The authors note “Multifunctional landscapes have the potential to address many ecological and social problems we face, now and in the future. However, achieving this requires a focused aim, a clear process, and input from scientists with diverse expertise.”  I would add to that and drawing on input from other knowledge systems – following the work of IPBES in this regard. They implicitly recognise this through sugging that by “adopting a holistic approach and considering the needs of all those who use a landscape, we can maximise the potential of multifunctional landscapes.” This is a good thread through the paper – ensuring the obvious question of Multifunctional for what? –  constantly addressed.

These two papers, on the surface quite different in content and focus, and from different continents do illustrate key common features:

  • We cannot understand or manage nature well unless we see people as part of nature;
  • People through individual actions can have influence in nature conservation – we do not (shouldn’t) need to leave everything to “the government”;
  • Understanding todays landscapes are multifunctional – and I would add cultural – is crucial promote more sustainable and resilient land-use practices.

I recommend both papers as an enjoyable read; they are written well, in non-technical language. And while you read them, think on your own sense of place, and what that means for your own, and the worlds, future.

Read Interdisciplinary insights into navigating the maze of landscape multifunctionality by Hanna Fors and colleagues from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences at our Open Access journal.

…and read the Plain Language Summary here at Relational Thinking.

Read What monarch butterfly waystation names can reveal about program participants by Emily Geest from the Oklahoma Zoo and colleagues from the Universities of Kansas and Oklahoma at our Open Access journal.

…and read the Plain Language Summary here at Relational Thinking.