Landscape policy is fundamentally a governance system that structures how land is used, resources are managed, and decisions are coordinated among actors, across scales, and within institutions. Landscapes are not static physical units but dynamic social–ecological systems shaped by continuous interaction between human activity and natural processes. In this context, landscape policy operates as the institutional architecture that organizes these interactions into coherent systems of land use and management. It establishes the rules, processes, and structures through which landscapes are shaped, contested, and transformed over time. As such, landscape policy cannot be reduced to sectoral interventions; it is a system-level function governing spatial, ecological, and socio-economic dynamics simultaneously.
Institutions and the policy and regulatory solutions they can design and promulgate are critical to advancing multisectoral approaches to land management and restoration. Governments play a critical role in developing policies and regulations that can unlock institutional, technology, and financing solutions. Policies and regulations can also require or incentivize the private sector to contribute to integrated landscape management. Importantly, policies need to be linked intentionally to other sectoral policies so that policies complement and enhance other efforts rather than negate any desired benefits to social, economic and environmental outcomes.
Policy and regulatory solutions include:
Establishing and enforcing property rights. Property rights that are clear and enforceable – whether individual or communal – are essential to addressing land degradation. Property rights help avoid the “tragedy of the commons” whereby resources that are owned by no one are exploited for private benefit until degraded or no longer productive. Property rights enable individuals and communities to conduct land use planning; enable benefit-sharing agreements between governments and communities; enable governments to promulgate and enforce natural resource laws and regulations, regulate development, and require conservation and mitigation; and enable public and private investments to be made into land and associated resources. The video below discusses tenure security in the context of landscape management.
Natural resource laws and regulations. A variety of natural resource laws and regulations support landscape management. These include environmental protection laws that establish public protection of certain land, water, and air resources and species and habitats (e.g., the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act in the U.S.); land use planning laws and regulations for development, environment, and infrastructure planning; and compensatory mitigation requirements for impacts to protected resources. The video below provides an overview of environmental law that is useful for development practitioners.
Repurposing agricultural subsidies. Agricultural subsidies most frequently take the form of price incentives such as export subsidies and import tariffs and directed subsidies for specific crops or agricultural inputs. These subsidies can distort economic behavior and cause significant harm to the environment. A 2021 UN report stated that “Price incentives and fiscal subsidies are forms of support that may have significant negative implications on food systems, as they incentivize production practices and behaviors that might be harmful to the health, sustainability, equity and efficiency of food systems”. Across 88 countries, this report tallied USD 540 billion annually (2013-2018) in support to agricultural producers, the majority of which were price incentives and subsidies to farmers for production of specific crops. While agricultural support produces market distortions that encourage over-cultivation and destruction of nature – the UN report estimated that nearly 90% of existing subsidies are harmful to the environment and market-distorting - eliminating agricultural support altogether would also cause significant and deleterious food production impacts. For this reason, repurposing agricultural subsidies is a policy alternative that seeks to balance food production and income needs with social and environmental well-being. The video below discusses repurposing agricultural subsidies for a more sustainable food system.
Land use planning. Land use planning involves assessment of land types and uses, and decision-making processes that enable and empower communities and institutions to make informed and intentional decisions about the uses to which land is put. Governments can require specific land use planning criteria and processes through policy and regulation that are instrumental to integrated landscape management where these requirements necessitate that different sectors (e.g., transportation, conservation, development, agriculture) inform decisions collaboratively. This can result in prioritzation of where development occurs and avoid, for example, development in sensitive areas such as source watersheds. A recent report by UNCCD underscores the importance of land use planning and integrated landscape management to achieving land degradation neutrality. The video below discusses how land use and planning can address land degradation.
Public-private partnerships (PPPs). Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are innovative arrangements through which the private sector handles some aspects of public service delivery that would otherwise be provided by a public sector/governmental entity. PPPs create efficiencies and potentially better social, economic and environmental outcomes in areas such as infrastructure delivery (e.g., green infrastructure) through leveraging the specialized technical expertise and experience of private sector companies. PPPs offer opportunities to align the interests of communities, government, and private companies around environmental restoration. A recent World Bank project supported a PPP in Ethiopia to improve livelihoods and environmental health through an engagement on watershed development. The video below discusses the importance of partnerships in landscape management.
Protected areas management.The Protected Planet Report 2024 estimated that roughly 18% of land and inland water and nearly 9% of oceans and coastal areas existed within protected areas. Protected areas are critical spaces in which sensitive and biodiversity-rich ecosystems can be permanently protected. However, management of protected areas - including on-going and sufficiently funded stewardship, monitoring and enforcement of the natural resources they contain – is a key aspect of ensuring that these areas contribute to overall land use planning and integrated landscape management to achieve landscape-scale social, economic and environmental goals. The video below discusses the importance of protected areas as a nature-based solution.
Benefit-sharing agreements. The World Bank states that benefit sharing “...is generally understood as a framework for governments and project proponents to maximize and equitably distribute benefits among stakeholders, with special attention to people who are adversely affected. While impact mitigation efforts try to ensure that projects do no harm, benefit sharing seeks to deliver value to project host communities”. (World Bank 2024, p. 7) Benefit-sharing agreements are agreements that confirm a community’s acceptance of a development project (e.g., infrastructure) while specifying how a community will share the benefits the project delivers. Because benefit-sharing agreements allow communities to share in the social, economic and environment benefits of development projects, they serve as a risk management tool, reducing risk that a project will suffer due to community pushback, and increase the equity of development investments. The video below describes benefit sharing in the World Bank’s Tina River Hydropower Development Project in the Solomon Islands.
Open Data Policies. Open data policies allow open access to data and information that can facilitate the coordination and collaboration necessary across multiple institutions and stakeholders at the landscape scale. Open data policies demonstrate how policy interacts with other key pillars of integrated management – open data allows for the more efficient and effective use of data and information, brings stakeholders together and allows for collaboration, and is an important prerequisite for many innovative financial structures and mechanisms.
The form these policy and regulatory solutions take can meaningfully differ across landscape types, given the specific challenges and management requirements for different landscapes.
In dryland areas, some meaningful solutions are rangeland governance frameworks and drought insurance. Rangeland governance can be fragmented – as evidenced in Kenya, for example, where rangelands are governed through a variety of policies covering different resources – and there is room for optimizing policies.
In forest landscapes, solutions can include securing and enforcing community forest tenure, developing eco-tourism, and strengthening sustainable forest value chains.
In coastal areas, solutions can include river basin management, blue economy development planning, coastal erosion and pollution management, and reef ecosystem management.