Participatory Land Use Planning Research Articles

A comparative study of participatory land-use planning and the theory of the right to the city

A comparative study of participatory land-use planning and the theory of the right to the city

Participatory land-use planning for strengthening the village land resources management: a case study of Gorontalo, Indonesia

Sustainable land management is crucial to ensure the availability of food, water, and clean air, especially to long-term support of human well-being and health. Continuous exploitation of land resources leads to land degradation and declines in agricultural productivity, biodiversity, and ecosystem services. This study aims to strengthen land resources management at the village level through a participatory land-use planning (PLUP) approach. The research location is at Moliliulo Village, Gorontalo. Current issues on land use and land management were collected using participatory rural appraisal (PRA) techniques. This information became a consideration in land use analysis conducted using a geographic information system (GIS). The approved future land use directions are about 88% forest (natural forest and agroforestry) and 12% non-forest (agriculture, coconut plantations, settlements, and water body). The land-use plan is essential for guiding the village government and the villagers on managing land resources. Additionally, it potentially strengthens the village development programs, social forestry management and resolves forest conflict. To ensure the implementation of land use planning, the village government should develop regulations on land use.

Excluded communities and participatory land-use planning: experience from informal Roma settlements in Serbia

Citizen participation in the planning and decision-making process in the European post-socialist context is much debated. Still, the involvement of excluded communities in the urban planning process remains understudied. This paper presents and discusses the application of an innovative participatory approach designed to ensure active involvement of an excluded ethnic minority, the Roma community, in the process of formulating and adopting land-use plans for informal settlements in Serbia. By analysing the development of land-use plans in 11 municipalities, we observe that the applied participatory approach enhanced the inhabitants’ active participation and helped build consensus on the planned solution between the key actors. Findings also suggested that further work with citizens, capacity building of planners and administration, and secured financial mechanisms are needed to move citizen participation in urban planning beyond the limited statutory requirements.

The resilience of the agricultural system in the midst of the climate change issue in West Kalimantan

Population growth and land management are severe issues in Indonesia as a developing country. This condition leads to the food security problem and creates a high demand for land to become an agricultural area. Meanwhile, Indonesia is known for having two-third of the terrestrial area as forest area and at the same time, the availability of the agricultural area is limited. These opposite issues are creating a phenomenon in forest conversion to become an agricultural area. Due to this situation the agricultural sector is considered as the sector responds for “deforestation- leading-to-climate change” in Indonesia as happened in Labian Village, West Kalimantan. The objective of this study is to analyze the impact of an involvement of the forest-dependent- community of Labian Village in the investment program of forest and climate change to combat the deforestation-leading-to-climate change issues through the activities of sustainable agriculture. Based on an explorative study from the five-year project, it is known that sustainable agriculture can be done back-to-back with the mission to avoid encroachment to the forest area. By implementing the participatory land-use planning as a tool of sustainable land management, the community now can maximize the utility from their land and generate sufficient welfare.

Governing Landscapes for Ecosystem Services: A Participatory Land-Use Scenario Development in the Northwest Montane Region of Vietnam.

Land-use planning is an important policy instrument for governing landscapes to achieve multifunctionality in rural areas. This paper presents a case study conducted in Na Nhan commune in the northwest montane region of Vietnam to assess land-use strategies toward multiple ecosystem services, through integrated land-use planning. The assessment employed the Land-Use Planning for Multiple Ecosystem Services (LUMENS) framework and a number of methods and tools, including land-use mapping, GIS-based land-use change analysis, survey questionnaire, rapid carbon-stock appraisal for different land uses, qualitative ecosystem services assessment, and a backcasting technique. Our findings suggest that a lack of participation and acknowledgement of customary land-use practices inhibit successful implementation of current land-use planning and relevant policies such as payment for forest environmental services and the nationally determined contributions. The study also confirmed the contributions of forests and the land-use sector in achieving national emission reduction targets, especially when local stakeholders are involved early in the planning process. Other findings with important policy implications are: (i) tree-based land uses such as agroforestry are key to securing multiple ecosystem services and are highly relevant to local stakeholders, yet their potentials were not made explicit in current debates at the local level; (ii) local stakeholders are highly aware of the co-benefits of ecosystem services to climate-change mitigation and this should be considered in nationally determined contributions; and (iii) an approach for integrated, participatory land-use planning can help catalyze stakeholder engagement, and hence improve governance in rural landscapes.

Exploring farmer perceptions of agroforestry via multi-objective optimisation: a test application in Eastern Panama

Understanding farmers’ perceptions of and preferences towards agroforestry is essential to identify systems with the greatest likelihood of adoption to inform successful rural development projects. In this study we offer a novel approach for evaluating agroforestry systems from the farmer perspective. The approach couples rapid rural appraisal and normative optimisation techniques to determine favourable land-use compositions for meeting various socio-economic and ecological goals, based on farmers’ empirical knowledge and preferences. We test our approach among smallholder farmers in Eastern Panama, obtaining data from household interviews and using hierarchical cluster analysis to identify farm groups with similar land-use and income characteristics. We found that moderate differences in farmers’ perceptions between these groups altered the type and share of agroforestry included in the optimised land-use portfolios that balance the achievement of 10 pre-selected socio-economic and ecological objectives. Such differences provide valuable information about potential acceptability of agroforestry within each group. For example, we found that farmers who derive most of their farm income from crops may be more willing to adopt silvopasture, whereas farmers who are more economically dependent on cattle may benefit from diversifying their land-use with alley cropping. We discuss the potential of this modelling approach for participatory land-use planning, especially when dealing with small sample sizes and uncertainty in datasets.

Indigenous and local knowledge in environmental management for human-nature connectedness: a leverage points perspective

ABSTRACT Indigenous peoples are key actors for environmental management because they hold valuable indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) for the sustainable stewardship of nature. However, the consideration of ILK in environmental management is still limited. We explore how environmental government institutions in Colombia have involved indigenous communities in 2212 environmental management projects between 2004 and 2015. Only 1% of these projects involved indigenous peoples as main actors. We applied the Leverage Points (LP) perspective in a content analysis to identify ‘where’ and ‘how’ these projects promote transformative changes within indigenous territories. Moreover, we investigated the interactions between projects targeting shallow and deep LP using cluster analysis. Our results show that these projects mainly seek to improve the well-being of indigenous peoples and consider ILK in their interventions, which suggests changes in deep LP. Additionally, these projects usually combined interventions targeting both shallow and deep LP while using ILK to improve environmental management practices (e.g., Life Plans) and developing participatory land-use planning in the indigenous territories. We argue that the involvement of ILK in environmental management can lead to stronger human–nature connectedness and thus to more successful conservation policies. However, this involvement is still at an early stage in Colombia.

Định hướng sử dụng đất nông nghiệp có sự tương tác giữa các chủ thể tại huyện Châu Thành A, tỉnh Hậu Giang

Chau Thanh A district, Hau Giang province is an agricultural district. Therefore, the land use allocation plays an important role in sustainable agricultural development. Additionally, a feasible land-use planning must achieve high consensus of local communities and stakeholders. In this study, the data were collected from technical reports, field survey, household interview, participatory rural appraisal (PRA). The analysis conducted via land evaluation method (FAO,1976) and participatory land use planning (PLUP). Agricultural land-use plans were developed in near future (2020) for Chau Thanh A district based on the potential of land and active participation of the concerned stakeholders in land-use planning process. The local land-use planning was discussed to get the agreement and the coordination among stakeholders on adaptation practices. The result could support decision makers for sustainable agricultural development.

Land-Use Planning, Digital Technologies, and Environmental Conservation in Tanzania

Participatory land-use planning (LUP) is often promoted as a solution to various environment-related challenges. In Tanzania, planning processes often represent a stage in the conversion of village lands to different uses, such as wildlife conservation or large-scale farming. LUP in Tanzania is frequently dominated by powerful local, national, or international elites, resulting in loss of rights over village land despite the opposition of many villagers. Contemporary planning involves digital technologies such as global positioning system units, which enable easier storage and sharing of geospatial data. Using assemblage theory, and based on key informant interviews conducted in Arusha and Kilimanjaro Regions of Tanzania in 2015, this article shows that LUP, particularly when it involves digital technologies, is used to not only to change land uses but also to strengthen linkages between different organizations, reinforce certain narratives of environmental change, and legitimize particular forms of external intervention.

Participation of Informal Settlers in Participatory Land Use Planning Project in Pursuit of Tenure Security

A majority of the urban population in Dar es Salaam City in Tanzania lives in informal (unplanned) settlements. The living conditions in these settlements lack among other things, security of tenure. In response to the growing need for tenure security, the Government of the United Republic of Tanzania adopted participatory land use planning (PLUP) approaches to help local people secure rights over land and to strengthen the local management of institutions. However, the PLUP approaches often are subverted by inadequate participation of the local community. By way of a methodology, the study evaluates PLUP project under the Business and Property Formalization Programme (MKURABITA) towards enhancing tenure security of informal settlers in Baruti informal settlement in Dar es Salaam City. The research examines the perception of informal settlers in PLUP project and their level of participation in the PLUP process. Based on research findings, the researchers suggest a strategic and collaborative framework to have a lasting and sustainable impact of PLUP approach towards improving land tenure security. This research will help scholars and practitioners to understand the current state of the literature in participatory land use planning for improving tenure security. This case study as an example will shed the light on means that can be utilized in improving the level of participation of informal settlers in PLUP process.

Integrating indigenous knowledge for participatory land use planning (PLUP) in Tra Hat hamlet, a climate-smart village in the Mekong River Delta, Vietnam

Agriculture is a primary source of livelihood in the Vietnamese Mekong River Delta with different land use activities. There are different potential conflicts in agricultural land use, including: water resources use and interests. Therefore, establishing feasible land use planning (LUP) in an area needs an in-depth participation and discussion among stakeholders (including: governments at different levels, local farmers, and national and international scientists). Indigenous knowledge of local farmers plays an important role in making land use decision, which can support solving land-use conflicts to achieve the most sustainable management of land resources. In this study, we integrated local knowledge into a land use planning process to assess the suitability of land use types and to project potential impacts of climate change conditions on land use decisions in the Tra Hat hamlet, one of the climate-smart village (CSV) sites in the Vietnamese Mekong River Delta. A total of two consultation meetings, using simple tools (resources mapping, timeline, seasonal calendar, wealth ranking, Venn diagram, pair wise ranking, and key informants’ interviews), were conducted, and 130 households were interviewed during a field visit in 2015. As a result, a participatory land use planning (PLUP) was implemented with active participation of the concerned communities to establish a suitable land use planning and identify the potential adaptation techniques in the near future (2020). Land use planning at the hamlet was discussed to get the agreement and the coordination among local governments, farmers and scientists on adaptation practices.

A model of the science–practice–policy interface in participatory land-use planning: lessons from Laos

An essential task of participatory action-research is to help close the policy implementation gap that leads to large discrepancies between policy frameworks and local practices. Too often, official regulations, laws and decrees fail to translate into concrete action on the ground. Loose institutional linkages between research, extension and local communities are often blamed as the main culprits for this gap. In turn, many stakeholders call for enhanced participation as a way to bring together scientists, development practitioners and local communities in negotiating competing claims for natural resources and designing realistic pathways towards sustainable development. Despite such general consensus about the value of participation, the latter cannot be decreed nor imposed. Participation is an emerging quality of collective-action and social-learning processes. In this paper, the experience of participatory land-use planning conducted in Laos serves to illustrate a model of the science–practice–policy interface that was developed to facilitate the interactions between three groups of stakeholders, i.e. scientists, planners and villagers, in designing future landscapes. Emphasis was put on developing an approach that is generic and adaptive enough to be applied nationally while engaging local communities in context-sensitive negotiations. The set of tools and methods developed through action-research contributed to enhanced communication and participation from initial consultation and cooperation stages towards collective decision-making and action. Both the activity of landscape design and the resulting patterns can be improved by incorporating landscape science in strategic multi-stakeholder negotiations.

Engaging Local Communities in Low Emissions Land-Use Planning: a Case Study from Laos

Bourgoin, J., J.-C. Castella, C. Hett, G. Lestrelin, and A. Heinimann 2013. Engaging local communities in low emissions land-use planning: a case study from Laos. Ecology and Society 18(2): 9. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-05362-180209

Toward a land zoning negotiation support platform: “Tips and tricks” for participatory land use planning in Laos

Managing complex landscape mosaics in areas dominated by poverty often requires addressing conflicting objectives and managing trade-offs, such as that between maintaining/enhancing ecological functions and improving livelihoods. Laos, like many other developing countries dependent on agriculture and natural resources for the subsistence of a mostly rural population, has used land use planning (LUP) as a core policy instrument to achieve sustainable development. However, previous reviews of LUP implementation showed large discrepancies between policies and practices and between the intended goals and actual outcomes. There is a need for increased participation, improved integration of scales, harmonization of superimposed plans, and enhanced coordination between implementing agencies and other stakeholders. Consequently, former normative approaches to LUP have been gradually replaced (at least on paper) by a new paradigm. Participatory land use planning (PLUP) has recently become a central element of donor-supported programs in developing countries. However, despite the good intentions of PLUP principles, implementation remains entangled with confused practical issues that compromise effective participation. As an alternative to complex, technologically sophisticated LUP models that local stakeholders cannot use or replicate, a communication platform supporting negotiations among multiple stakeholder groups was tested in a village cluster in Luang Prabang Province in northern Laos. This innovative approach, based on a combination of role-playing games, participatory 3D modeling, GIS, and socioeconomic and environmental impact assessment, allows stakeholders to collectively explore the consequences of land use decisions and choose between alternative future landscapes.

Sharpening the understanding of socio-ecological landscapes in participatory land-use planning. A case study in Lao PDR

In the two decades since the 1992 Rio Conference, land-use planning (LUP) has become recognized as a key instrument in putting discourses on sustainable development into practice. In Lao PDR, despite the implementation problems, it is still seen as a lever for securing land tenure, rationalizing extension services provision, and more recently, for implementing ‘Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation’ (REDD) schemes. Impact assessments of past LUP have revealed weaknesses of local institutions in the effective implementation of land policies. In order to avoid the blind trust placed in delusive LUP success stories, methods for monitoring community participation and understanding of LUP activities have been developed in order to assess the quality of the process. Expanding on this perspective, this article proposes a method to assess the quality of LUP outputs and to visualize the gap between planning objectives and their actual achievements. This method, based on a refined analysis of past and present land zoning practices in Lao PDR, gives full prominence to the complexity of landscape mosaics and the way local populations actually use the land. Furthermore, this approach, developed and tested under real planning conditions, can also be seen as a safeguard and support for inexperienced implementers in their land-use planning practices, as a diagnostic instrument for quality assessment, i.e. level of accuracy of a land-use plan, and may finally pave the way toward becoming a tool for land-use planning certification.

“PLUP FICTION”: Landscape Simulation for Participatory Land Use Planning in Northern Lao PDR

Abstract A landscape simulation was designed and tested in Viengkham, a mountainous district in the north of Lao PDR. This social learning process was introduced by researchers affiliated with national research institutions to improve land use planning practices and increase the ownership of local people in the planning process. Twelve members of the village land management committees participated in the role play called “PLUP Fiction,” which is part of a stepwise process of participatory land use planning (PLUP). This article introduces the principles of land zoning, the sequence of events presented during the role play session, and the lessons learned from a series of experiments conducted in remote upland villages. The villagers gained an increased understanding of the issues at stake during a zoning process, thus demonstrating the relevance of this learning simulation tool. They were able to explore different zoning options, assess their respective advantages and constraints, and gradually improve the...

Enhancing participation: Experiences of participatory geographic information systems in Shanxi province, China

The concept of participation is not intrinsic to the nature of Chinese planning systems; institutionally, they are centralized and top-down and lack local effective participation and communication between all actors. In recent years, participatory geographic information systems (PGIS) approaches have been used in natural resource planning and management. The paper discusses a concrete adoption of the methodology of PGIS into Participatory land use planning (PLUP) in the rural Shanxi province of China. A PGIS operational framework for PLUP is generalized from the project practice.

ＧＩＳを使用した土地利用の適正分析 長野県飯田市座光寺を事例として

This paper is research on the development of the Suitability support system ofparticipatory land use planning. It was analyzed suitability by using GIS in this paper. A vegetation, soil and inclination of landscape factors were laid, and a proper analysis was done in participatory land use planning. It found out the problem and so on which the inhabitant who participated in the decision of the land use plan by laying the landscape factors on participatory land use planning should take into consideration. The land use zone, which was suitable for the use could be presented as that result The suitability analysis of the land use by GIS of this paper is the technique which participatory land use-planning supports.