Throughout the tropics wooded landscapes have been converted into landscapes dominated by agriculture. These landscapes consist of a mosaic of different land uses, and are highly dynamic, reflecting the continuous changes in the interactions between people and the environment. Understanding the mechanisms that underlie and drive the changes in these social-ecological systems, including the complex institutional arrangements, is a crucial step towards reconciliation of key landscape functions: the maintenance of biodiversity, the supply of a wide portfolio of ecosystem services, and meeting the needs of local actors. This requires design and negotiation of targeted land use options, in close collaboration with local actors.

This symposium focuses on dynamic tropical areas where forests, woodlands and agricultural lands meet, and links the landscape-transforming strategies of the various actors in those areas with landscape change and resulting ecosystem services, and wellbeing of local people.  

We intend to present cases studies that (1) identify and understand the ecological and social drivers that shape dynamic landscapes and their ecosystem services, (2) explain temporal changes in the social-ecological system and their consequences for landscape configurations, and (3) design adaptive strategies to balance and optimize the supply of ecosystem services in changing landscapes.

The cases we present cover various approaches, ideas and theories, mostly departing from socio-ecological system thinking. This may include landscape modelling to predict land use change and their impacts on ecosystem services at different spatial and temporal scales, anthropological and local people based views on land use change and its drivers, tools aimed at participatory design and inclusive land use planning, and institutions, rules and regulations as major drivers of  land use change and therewith on the contributions of nature to people.

The cases will present examples from tropical regions in Latin-America, Africa and Asia.