Case Studies

What landscape initiative maturity looks like in practice: The Mount Kenya story

In the Mount Kenya region, climate volatility and severe land degradation strained ecosystems, pushed communities to the brink, and threatened Kenya’s most critical water reservoirs. These challenges were further exacerbated by uncoordinated and fragmented conservation efforts, which hindered effective responses. However, the Mount Kenya Sustainable Landscape and Livelihoods Initiative (MSuLLi) transformed this fragmented approach into a powerful, coordinated platform for change. In doing so, Mount Kenya began transitioning from a project-defined intervention area into a Thriving Landscape with stronger local governance, investable priorities, and coordinated action across sectors. Reflecting the core criteria that define mature landscape initiatives, MSuLLi evolved into a multi-stakeholder platform that championed inclusive governance, collective action, and robust monitoring. As a result, the initiative restored degraded land, boosted the incomes of over 55,000 farmers, and mobilized nearly $2 million in blended finance, creating a sustainable path forward for both people and the environment.

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Transforming Southern Leyte: Restoring the Lifeblood of a Coconut Landscape

In Southern Leyte, a landscape long defined by coconut farming is facing mounting pressure from declining productivity, environmental degradation, and persistent poverty, revealing how deeply livelihoods and ecosystems are intertwined. LandScale’s latest case study uncovers these hidden dynamics and highlights how a collaborative, landscape-level approach is helping to shift the trajectory. As local communities, government, and private sector actors work together, supported by data-driven insights and inclusive decision-making, new opportunities are emerging to restore resilience, diversify livelihoods, and rebuild the foundations of a more sustainable future.

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Landscape initiative maturity: Infrastructure for a nature-positive future

As climate volatility, biodiversity collapse, and social inequality converge, landscape approaches offer a way to address interconnected challenges—but their success depends on credible multi-stakeholder governance. This article highlights how landscape initiative maturity serves as essential infrastructure, signalling investment readiness, strengthening partnerships, and helping realign financial flows toward landscape-defined priorities. By focusing on the governance foundations that enable systemic, lasting change, it shows how to move from ambition to investability and accelerate a nature-positive future.

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Challenges and opportunities in Mali’s Bassin de Sikasso landscape

Communities in Bassin de Sikasso confront a number of unprecedented ecological upheavals which increasingly threaten to disrupt their way of life. An assessment made using the LandScale framework explored these problems, and identified some high-impact interventions that could transform one of West Africa’s most critical agricultural regions.

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Beyond the farm gate: Monitoring regenerative agriculture at landscape scale

Regenerative agriculture is no longer just a buzzword—it is a global movement inspiring farmers, companies, investors, and policymakers to reimagine the future of food and land use. But as the world rallies behind ambitious commitments to regeneration, one critical question remains: How do we measure success? Are individual efforts truly adding up to the transformative change we need, or are we missing the bigger picture?

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Linking ecosystems, people, and production: An integrated approach to landscape sustainability

Our environmental, social, and economic systems are inextricably linked, and interventions that address one domain in isolation risk inefficacy and unintended consequences. Genuine, lasting change demands a comprehensive understanding of how systems function and interact. With this as its starting principle, LandScale’s assessment framework embodies a vital shift in how we understand and implement sustainability at the landscape level. Our framework takes a holistic approach, integrating four pillars - ecosystems, governance, human well-being, and production - to reflect the profound complexity of real-world landscapes. In this article, we will use the example of an initiative in the Philippines to explore the significance of each of the pillars, why their interconnection matters, and how an integrated assessment empowers organizations to drive meaningful, lasting impact.

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Generating credible landscape-level claims: Insights from the Sierra de Tapalpa pilot

In 2023, we launched a pilot for our pioneering claims validation mechanism — a process designed to enable companies and organizations to substantiate and showcase their contributions to landscape-level sustainability. This article delves into the mechanism’s innovative features, key insights from several pilot claims in Mexico, and the benefits it offers for businesses and other organizations.

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Landscape initiative maturity: A roadmap towards greater credibility and resilience

As we gain a deeper understanding of both the complexity and fragility of our planet’s life-support systems, the field of sustainability is evolving. In this decade, it is crucial for us to recognize that humanity’s needs are profoundly interconnected with the protection of the Earth’s natural resources. Our well-being, and ultimately our survival, depend on such an understanding, and the legacy of this moment in history will be defined by our collective ability to act upon it.

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Charting Nepal’s sustainable future in the Sacred Himalayan Landscape

Spanning the eastern Himalayas from Nepal through India and into Bhutan, the Sacred Himalayan Landscape stands out globally for its unique habitats, ecosystem, and biodiversity. Recognizing its significance, RECOFTC has identified a section of this landscape in Nepal as one of its 10 focal landscapes. RECOFTC’s LandScale baseline study provides a comprehensive evaluation of the area’s ecological and socio-economic systems, aiming to understand their interconnectedness and to establish a baseline against which future sustainability efforts can be measured.

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Taking a grassroots approach to landscape-level sustainability in Sierra de Tapalpa

Sierra de Tapalpa in Jalisco, Mexico provides sanctuary for a wide variety of plants and animals, productive land for farming, and diverse livelihoods for the 48,000 people who call it home. But unsustainable practices threaten this fragile landscape, with implications for both people and nature. Since 2020, the Rainforest Alliance has been working with local communities to improve sustainability, and they’ve used LandScale to guide their actions.

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Securing a more sustainable future in Southwestern Guatemala

In 2021, Rainforest Alliance and Solidaridad undertook a LandScale assessment to better understand key sustainability challenges in the Southwestern Trifinio landscape and have used the results to develop a targeted action plan to restore this landscape for generations to come.

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Helping forests and forest communities to thrive in San Martín Peru

In northern Peru, the Lamas landscape in San Martín covers over 2,000 square kilometers and is dominated by forest ecosystems rich in biodiversity. However, increasing agricultural demand and a growing population have led to significant deforestation in the landscape, with far reaching implications for the wellbeing of both its inhabitants and ecosystems.

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Strengthening Communities, Ecosystems & Local Economies

Differentiating carbon and biodiversity credits to generate additional funding for the landscape

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Protecting Water in San José, Costa Rica

Building support and attracting investment for the Agua Tica Water Fund by defining common goals, tracking progress, and credibly communicating results

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Powering Coffee Sustainability in Mexico

Assessing the impact of the public-private partnership to enable prosperous coffee farming to co-exist alongside thriving communities and healthy ecosystems.

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