PROPOSAL FOR IPSI COLLABORATIVE ACTIVITY
Landscapes for People, Food, and Nature:
Ecoagriculture Conference, Knowledge Exchange, and Action Planning* Overview
The international Ecoagriculture Conference, Knowledge Exchange, and Action Planning initiative has
four objectives:
1. To share and assess experience with diverse models for ecoagriculture (socio-ecologicalproduction ) landscape development and take stock of lessons learned and recent progress
globally;
2. To identify and understand the demographic, market, ecological, and other forces that influence
ecoagriculture (socio-ecological production) landscapes and their potential to achieve production,conservation, and livelihood goals;
3. To showcase tools developed in areas such as landscape analysis, multi-stakeholder planning,strategic design of interventions, policy design, sustainable supply chain development, andmonitoring of impacts and outcomes; and4. To define and mobilize an international action agenda to support innovators and develop
ecoagriculture (socio-ecological production) landscapes on a scale that would make a significant
difference in achieving global goals for food security, climate change mitigation and adaptation,and conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services.
This two-year process will be oriented around approximately 6-8 Key Questions, the answers to which
will be critical to management, policy, and investment for rural landscapes in the coming decade. The
first year will focus on analysis, synthesis and consultations among innovators. Results will be fed into aninternational Conference to be held in late February/early March of 2012, in Nairobi, Kenya, hosted byUNEP. During the second year, outputs from the Conference will be published and disseminated todifferent field, program and policy audiences, to support the scaling up of agricultural landscapeinvestment.

EcoAgriculture Partners leads the group of Co-Organizers, which presently include Bioversity
International, Conservation International, UNEP, and World Agroforestry Centre. We proposethat the Secretariat of the International Partnership for the Satoyama Initiative (IPSI) and otherinterested IPSI members also become a Core Organizer of this meeting, to ensure that Satoyama
Initiative’s concept and experience are fully incorporated and to enhance the international profileof IPSI efforts.
* Clusters to be allocatedThis initiative will contribute to Goal 1 identified by the Paris Declaration: Enhance understanding
and raise awareness of the importance of socio-ecological production landscapes for livelihoods and thethree objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity. It is relevant to all three Clusters under this
Goal:Cluster 1. Knowledge Facilitation. A major objective of the Conference will be to collect, analyse,synthesisse and compare landscape case studies, and distill lessons learned for dissemination.
Cluster 2. Policy Research. The initiative will commission, synthesize and review research on ways andmeans to (i) promote wisdom, knowledge and practice which enables a stable supply of diverse ecosystemservices; (ii) build bridges for inter-cultural communication between traditional ecological knowledge
systems and modern science; (iii) Explore new forms of co-management systems or “new” commons
while respecting traditional communal land tenure; (iv) revitalise and innovate socio-ecologicalproduction landscapes; and (v) integrate results in policy and decision-making processes, including theConference on Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change in Vietnam in late first quarter of 2012
and the CSD meeting in Brazil in May 2012.
Cluster 3. Indicators Research. The Conference will have as a major theme the long-term monitoring anassessment of agricultural landscapes and associated measurable indicators of resilience associated withlinkages between human well-being and the socio-ecological production landscape mosaic, including
linkages between wild and anthropogenic components of landscape and ecosystems; and applying these
indicators to contribute to the implementation of the Ecosystem Approach.
* IPSI member organisations to be involved
Most of the current Core Organizers of this initiative are already members of IPSI. This Conference andKnowledge Exchange can involve all members of IPSI. Ideally, as many as possible can participate in themeeting. Representatives from each of the Cluster activities can present results of IPSI work, andparticipate in thematic working groups. IPSI members who are unable to attend the Conference in Nairobi
can still be actively involved in electronic discussions that will be held during the months before themeeting. The IPSI Secretariat and other interested IPSI members are invited to sit on the International
Steering Committee, and to engage with the other Core Co-Organizers in making strategic decisions
about the Conference program, inputs and outputs.
It is further proposed that IPSI hold its 2012 Public Forum and the IPSI Assembly back-to-back with theEcoagriculture Conference, to facilitate international exchange of knowledge, showcase IPSI in thisinternational audience, and conserve financial resources for travel and organization.
* Timeframe
The Conference will be hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme at their headquarters inNairobi, Kenya, tentatively February 26-March 2, 2012. Knowledge exchange activities andcommissioning of background papers will begin in March 2011.
* Contact details

For more information, contact: Dr. Sara J. Scherr, President, EcoAgriculture Partners,sscherr@ecoagriculture.org or Dr. Jeffrey Milder, Director, Research Program, EcoAgriculture
Partners, jmilder@ecoagriculture.org, 730 11th Street, NW, Suite 301; Washington, DC 20001;
tel: 202-393-5315; Fax: 202-393-2424. www.ecoagriculture.org