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Sustainability Science

Agroforestry and sustainable landscape management are key strategies for implementing the UN-Sustainable Development Goals across the world’s production landscapes. However, both strategies have so far been studied in isolation from each other. This editorial introduces a special feature dedicated to scrutinizing the role of agroforestry in sustainable landscape management strategies. The special feature comprises eleven studies that adopt inter- and transdisciplinary perspectives, integrating ecological, agricultural, and socio-economic sciences, and in some cases also practical knowledge. The studies relate to a range of different ecosystem goods and services, and to a diversity of societal sectors (e.g., agriculture, forestry, nature conservation, urban planning, landscape protection) and demands, including their mutual synergies and trade-offs. They inform land-use policy and practice by conceptualizing agroforestry as a set of “nature-based solutions” useful to help tackle multiple societal challenges. The studies encompass four themes: social-ecological drivers, processes, and impacts of changes of agroforestry landscapes; the sustainability outcomes of agroforestry at landscape scale; scaling up agroforestry through multi-stakeholder landscape strategies; and development of conceptual and operational tools for stakeholder analysis in agroforestry landscape transitions. Key steps to harness agroforestry for sustainable landscape management comprise: (i) moving towards an “agroforestry sustainability science”; (ii) understanding local land-use trajectories, histories, and traditions; (iii) upscaling agroforestry for landscape-scale benefits; (iv) promoting the multiple economic, environmental, social, and cultural values of agroforestry; (v) fostering inclusive forms of landscape governance; and (vi) supporting the innovation process of agroforestry system analysis and design.

Agroforestry for sustainable landscape management