Combining participatory games and backcasting to support collective scenario evaluation: an action research approach for sustainable agroforestry landscape management

Abstract

The combined and interacting effects of land-use change, resource extraction and climate change threaten the sustainability of millions of mainly smallholder farms in tropical agroforested landscapes. In many of these landscapes, coordinated action among stakeholders at landscape level would help to address challenges such as pests and diseases, price crises and climate change. However, methods to facilitate the co-production of sustainable landscape management in such complex multi-stakeholder systems are currently largely lacking. In this paper, we present a novel approach to explore pathways for the sustainability transition of agroforestry systems. By combining participatory forecasting and backcasting approaches, based on serious games and future vision development, we explore relevant agroforestry management strategies for reaching sustainable future coffee-based agroforestry landscapes. We focused our research on the challenges faced in the main coffee-producing area in Nicaragua. Here, we organized five participatory game sessions to explore farmer decision-making processes, farming strategies and to develop new networks and stimulate social learning among farmers. In the associated backcasting workshop, the most influential game session participants joined technicians, researchers and municipality officials to collectively envision sustainable future landscape management. In all game sessions, farmers developed diversified coffee-based agroforested landscapes characterised by increased density and diversity of shade trees, for the purpose of income diversification as well as forest conservation. During the backcasting workshop, the participants identified policy instruments and community-based solutions for the transition to sustainable landscapes. Our participatory approach facilitated discussion on landscape planning among farmers and other stakeholders and allowed the outline of a pathway towards the collective envisioned future landscape. The combination of participatory forecasting and backcasting proved to be a helpful tool to support multi-stakeholder processes towards sustainable landscape management in this and other complex landscapes.

Agroforestry for sustainable landscape management

“…In this special feature, 63 authors take up this challenge, presenting eleven original studies on agroforestry and landscape approaches. Studies were carried out in Canada (Laroche et al 2020), Ecuador (Buck et al 2020), France (Guillerme et al 2020; Therville et al 2020), Nicaragua (Andreotti et al 2020), Romania (Hartel et al 2020), and Thailand (Dumrongrojwatthana et al 2020) (Fig. 1).…”

“…Some studies focus on very specific and localized agroforestry systems, e.g. on combined rice and sugar palm systems in Southeast Asia (Dumrongrojwatthana et al 2020); on coffee-based systems in Central America (Andreotti et al 2020); or on olive-, chestnut-, and cork oak-based tree cropping systems in the Mediterranean Basin (Wolpert et al 2020). Others include a broader range of traditional and novel, silvopastoral and silvoarable systems (e.g., Buck et al 2020;Therville et al 2020).…”

“…The contributions typically triangulate various qualitative and quantitative methods and partly combine approaches from the social, ecological, agronomical, and geographical sciences. Many rely on participatory methods, such as serious games (Andreotti et al 2020), Delphi assessments (Flinzberger et al 2020), or stakeholder deliberations (Rolo et al 2020).…”

“…Such coalitions at landscape and supra-farm governance levels can potentially play a significant role in scaling up agroforestry. Andreotti et al (2020) explore the re-design of a complex coffee-based agroforestry system in central Nicaragua to transition towards greater sustainability. The findings show how a facilitated multi-stakeholder process can enable cocreation of transition pathways, providing a learning platform for sharing knowledge and practices and discussing opportunities and constraints.…”

“…The authors find the coupling of visual assessments and qualitative comments useful in understanding the "social coherence" of intercropping across different landscape contexts. Andreotti et al (2020) combine participatory forecasting and backcasting to explore agroforestry management strategies for envisioning more sustainable landscapes. The methods allow examination of farmer decision-making processes and farming strategies, as well as future visions for sustainable landscape management by groups of technicians, researchers and municipal officials.…”