Story | 24 Sep, 2013

Visualizing Sustainable Landscapes

IUCN’s visualizing sustainable landscapes is a manual aimed to support the environmental community who is using visualization techniques to communicate both abstract and concrete ideas when dealing with conservation and development situations. The manual contains various visualization techniques that will facilitate communication among various stakeholders from different ethnic groups, with different levels of educations and literacy and different needs.

Photo: IUCN (Agni Klintuni Boedhihartono)

What is actually the problem?
Many conservation programmes take place in the most isolated places of the earth but often highly threatened sites. It is vital to have a good understanding of the reality on the ground of the people who want to have better livelihoods, the social and cultural contexts as well as the complexity of the landscapes in order to ensure that development programmes are sustainable and equitable.

Some of the challenges faced by conservation and development experts include:
• grasping the “whole picture” when assessing the contributions of different stakeholders and the impact of their decisions on the landscapes
• understanding the different environmental and socio-cultural values amongst stakeholders in complex landscapes
• understanding complex issues of governance and power relationships

What the book offers:
This 56-page guide book offers interactive visualizations methods to understand, communicate and plan complicated situations and conditions; whereby sustainable development practitioners and stakeholders can illustrate their concerns on a large drawing of their environment. Animated drawings, smart mapping, and best-worst case scenarios are several visualization strategies suggested by the book to engage participants, with the purpose of negotiating trade-offs through comparing different stakeholders’ visions. In addition, maps, photographs and videos can be useful support to communicate issues and to track changes in the landscapes.

Visualizing sustainable landscapes was published in 2012 by Agni Klintuni Boedhihartono of IUCN in collaboration with James Cook University, Australia. You can download this publication right away by clicking here.

LINKS:

Download Publication-Visualizing Sustainable Landscapes