Bridging scenario planning and backcasting: A Q-analysis of divergent stakeholder priorities for future landscapes

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

Many landscapes in sub-Saharan Africa have undergone rapid changes, often with negative social and ecological impacts. Avoiding (or reversing) such negative impacts requires proactive landscape planning. Scenario planning, a participatory approach that generates narratives of plausible landscape change trajectories in the future, has been widely used to support landscape planning and decisions. However, not least because of challenges arising from group dynamics, few examples exist where backcasting—the collective envisioning of a desirable future landscape and the identification of pathways to reach that future—has been applied in landscape planning. In this study, building on past scenario planning work in southwestern Ethiopia, we begin to fill this empirical and methodological gap. Specifically, we used the Q-methodology to elucidate stakeholders' divergent landscape aspirations in a case study in southwestern Ethiopia. Our results show that many stakeholders share a similar vision of building a future landscape that supports smallholder-based development. However, details in the envisaged pathways differ between stakeholders. Three distinct pathways were prioritized by different stakeholders: (1) Agroecological production, (2) Coffee investment and (3) Intensive food crop production. Accounting for these divergent aspirations is important when taking further steps in landscape planning. We show how using the Q-methodology as a subjective assessment of stakeholders' landscape priorities can facilitate the integration of backcasting within the normative process of landscape planning. Our approach thus helps navigate conflicting stakeholders' preferences and based on that, carefully plan collective action towards a shared landscape vision. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Original languageEnglish
JournalPeople and Nature
Volume5
Issue number2
Pages (from-to)572-590
Number of pages19
ISSN2575-8314
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 04.2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors. People and Nature published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society.

DOI

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. Application of Software and Web-Based Tools for Sustainability Management in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises
  2. Modality of task presentation and mathematical abilitiy in a study about spatial ability
  3. Microstructure and hardness evolution of laser metal deposited AA5087 wall-structures
  4. Change and Continuity in Western Welfare Practices
  5. Analysis of Kinetic Dynamics of the Multipole Resonance Probe
  6. Anonymized Firm Data under Test: Evidence from a Replication Study
  7. Manufacturing, control, and performance evaluation of a Gecko-inspired soft robot
  8. Analphabetismus
  9. Chapter 9: Particular Remedies for Non-performance: Section 4: Price Reduction
  10. Institutional Perspectives on Digital Transformation
  11. The three-month effect of mobile internet-based cognitive therapy on the course of depressive symptoms in remitted recurrently depressed patients
  12. Consumer Preferences for Local Food: Testing an Extended Norm Taxonomy
  13. TERIM – Transition Dynamics in Energy Regions
  14. On Molecular Complexity Indices.
  15. Not Feeling Good in STEM
  16. Treating the nestedness temperature calculator as a "black box" can lead to false conclusions
  17. Bird community responses to the edge between suburbs and reserves
  18. The edge of virtual communities ?
  19. A suite of multiplexed microsatellite loci for the ground beetle Abax parallelepipedus (Piller and Mitterpacher, 1783) (Coleoptera, Carabidae)
  20. The German Welfare System and the Continuity of Change
  21. On the way to greener ionic liquids
  22. Chapter 9: Particular Remedies for Non-performance: Section 5: Damages and Interest
  23. Links between RCEs and Higher Education Institutions
  24. Schulleitungsmonitor Schweiz 2022
  25. An Im(Possible) Program
  26. Common Ground and Development
  27. Anmerkung zu EuGH Rs. C-555/07 (Kücükdeveci)
  28. Spatial scaling of extinction rates
  29. Governance im Wandel
  30. Oder/Denken
  31. Seth Price. Decimating Digital Data
  32. Medienpolitik in der EU
  33. The Welcomers
  34. Gods of tomorrow?
  35. Das fossile Imperium schlägt zurück
  36. Qualitätsentwicklung und Qualitätssicherung in der Schreibzentrumsarbeit
  37. Medizinische Forschung an Kindern
  38. Special issue: Exports, imports, and productivity at the firm level
  39. Mountain roads and non-native species modify elevational patterns of plant diversity
  40. Anders als die anderen?
  41. Selbstbestimmung und Classroom-Management