Designing and Evaluating Alternatives for More Sustainable Natural Resource Management in Less-favoured Areas

Less-favoured areas (LFAs) are defined as regions with low agricultural potential because of limited and uncertain rainfall, poor soils, steep slopes and/or other biophysical constraints, as well as regions that may have higher agricultural potential, but with poor infrastructure and limited access to markets, low population density and/or other socio-economic constraints. About 800 million people live in LFAs, mostly in the semi-arid tropics of Africa and South Asia, mountain and hillside areas in Africa, Latin America and South-east Asia, as well as in large parts of the humid (sub-)tropics of Africa and Latin America. The objective of this chapter is to contribute to the design and evaluation of options for more sustainable natural resource management (NRM) in LFAs. First, we deal with some basic issues in the design of alternatives for LFAs, including their definition, their biophysical and socio-economic diversity and heterogeneity and the main development pathways in which alternative NRM strategies may play a role. As LFAs are characterized by strong resource limitations at different scales, relevant issues on productivity and resource use efficiency in LFAs are discussed and a generic framework for the evaluation and design of alternatives is presented. In the search for options for more sustainable NRM in LFAs (technically feasible, economically viable, ecologically maintainable, socially acceptable), alternatives at different scales must be designed (including technological innovations and policy measures), aiming at maximum marginal resource use efficiency for the most limiting resource, and maximum absolute resource use efficiency for resources locally in more abundant supply. Essential for the success of those alternatives is strong stakeholder participation in both, their design and evaluation, using a multi-scale approach and taking into account the biophysical and socio-economic diversity and heterogeneity of NRM in LFAs.