Landscape governance : from analysing challenges to capacitating stakeholders

On June 5th 2021 the UN Decade of Ecosystem Restoration was launched. Within the Decade and its implementation strategies a landscape approach to ecosystem restoration is widely promoted. Within this context, landscape governance as a new concept has gained momentum because of its premise to reconcile conservation and development within landscapes. It is considered a pathway towards sustainable landscape restoration responding to the socio-cultural and productive needs of those living within landscapes. Despite its popularity, however, little is known about landscape governance and how it unfolds within different socio-spatial contexts. This thesis therefore aims to fill this knowledge gap by systematically analysing landscape governance, its manifestations in terms of actor constellations and institutions, the challenges that it encounters, the strategies that stakeholders employ to overcome these challenges, and the capabilities that stakeholders (need to) have to do this successfully.