Agroforestry for Sustainable Landscape Management

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 tradi-
tions; (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.