Toward Inclusive Landscape Governance in Contested Landscapes: Exploring the Contribution of Participatory Tools in the Upper Suriname River Basin

Abstract

Nowadays, tropical forest landscapes are commonly characterized by a multitude of interacting institutions and actors with competing land-use interests. In these settings, indigenous and tribal communities are often marginalized in landscape-level decision making. Inclusive landscape governance inherently integrates diverse knowledge systems, including those of indigenous and tribal communities. Increasingly, geo-information tools are recognized as appropriate tools to integrate diverse interests and legitimize the voices, values, and knowledge of indigenous and tribal communities in landscape governance. In this paper, we present the contribution of the integrated application of three participatory geo-information tools to inclusive landscape governance in the Upper Suriname River Basin in Suriname: (i) Participatory 3-Dimensional Modelling, (ii) the Trade-off! game, and (iii) participatory scenario planning. The participatory 3-dimensional modelling enabled easy participation of community members, documentation of traditional, tacit knowledge and social learning. The Trade-off! game stimulated capacity building and understanding of land-use trade-offs. The participatory scenario planning exercise helped landscape actors to reflect on their own and others’ desired futures while building consensus. Our results emphasize the importance of systematically considering tool attributes and key factors, such as facilitation, for participatory geo-information tools to be optimally used and fit with local contexts. The results also show how combining the tools helped to build momentum and led to diverse yet complementary insights, thereby demonstrating the benefits of integrating multiple tools to address inclusive landscape governance issues.

Spatial Tools for Integrated and Inclusive Landscape Governance: Toward a New Research Agenda

“…This is true of much of the literature on integrated landscape approaches (Minang et al 2014;Freeman et al 2015;Hart et al 2015;García-Martín et al 2016;Reed et al 2020a) as well as other contributions to this special issue (e.g., Asubonteng et al 2021;Djenontin et al. 2021;Best et al 2021;Shantiko et al 2021).…”

“…• Continual monitoring. The potential of participatory spatial tools to monitor how the allocation of land and resource use and rights came into being (Shantiko et al 2021) and how current trends shape (or interventions can change) transformations in the likely future (Asubonteng et al 2021, Best et al 2021) should be further developed. There is a need to go beyond 'oneshot' processes and turn 'an experience of the future into a culture of the future' (Shantiko et al 2021) through continued monitoring of landscape change.…”

“…Policymakers may not consider the results of participatory spatial tools as credible and acceptable knowledge, for instance, because they consider it an oversimplification of 'reality' (McCall 2016;Palomo et al 2018;Best et al 2021;Shantiko et al 2021). In light of such conflicting epistemologies, several authors suggest the need for research to explore how the perceptions of past, present, and anticipated landscape dynamics drawn from participatory research compare with results of remote sensing analysis and modeling (Aggrey et al 2021;Best et al 2021;Somuah et al 2021). In particular, further research on collaborative and participatory modeling is important (see, e.g., Voinov et al 2016).…”

“…By broadening the scope of actors, including the 'bad guys', it is possible to expand the knowledge inputs, be more representative (democratic), and reduce 'parochialism' or the 'bubble effect' (McCall 2021). Moreover, broadening the application, especially to local administrative authorities, allows an exploration of how participatory spatial tools can be integrated into formal planning processes (Do et al 2021;Best et al 2021).…”

“…Much of this literature can be positioned in the debate on integrated landscape approaches. However, a more critical scholarship warns that maps may be selective in their representations and obscure the complexities of land rights and power struggles over land use and resources (e.g., Sletto et al 2020;Best et al 2021;Movik et al 2021;Windey and Van Hecken 2021). This paper, therefore, highlights some critical notes regarding the application of participatory spatial tools.…”