REDD+ and Climate Smart Agriculture in landscapes: from national design to local implementation

Global challenges posed by an increasing food demand and climate change call for innovative mechanisms that consider both agriculture and forests. Agriculture and forests are deeply interconnected in mosaic landscapes, just as multiple pieces of the same puzzle. These pieces are handled by numerous stakeholders with different and often contrasting goals. Hence landscape management is steered by power, access to scarce resources, but also vulnerability and hazards. In this thesis I analyze the roles each stakeholder plays on these dynamics, including policy makers, agribusiness actors and subsistence farmers. I explore landscapes as interconnected tiles of a game, in which players are real stakeholders and their goals determine land use dynamics on the game board just as in reality. Sometimes agreements made in the game translate to real-life actions influencing policy and management decisions. Other times the game is just fun and eventually contributes to social learning and trust.