DOI: 10.7910/dvn/dvkmkh
title: Dataset with the experiences on integrated landscape management across Latin America and the Caribbean

description: The dataset contains the characterization of 104 integrated landscape initiatives surveyed in 2012. The survey questionnaire included a combination of closed and open-ended questions oriented to solicit information on the initiatives’ location and context, motivations and impetus, participants and stakeholders, investments and governance structures, outcomes, and most and least successful aspects. The questions were designed to gather information on the investments and outcomes of landscape initiative in four key activity domains: agriculture, conservation, livelihoods, and institutional planning and coordination. The dataset with the close-ended questions is made available to enable more comprehensive analysis and facilitating collaboration between initiatives and researchers (or institutions) interested in landscape-level planning, integrated landscape approach, and sustainable development. Open-ended questions are available in Spanish and Portuguese and upon request. You can find an approximate location of the initiatives here: https://worldmap.harvard.edu/maps/ILIs_LAC/bBV.
description: Value of the data 
• The data identify landscape-level initiatives that are simultaneously seeking to improve food production, biodiversity or ecosystem conservation, and rural livelihoods that could be useful to researchers, development or conservation organizations interested in supporting these efforts.
• The data provides information on where landscape-level efforts for sustainable agriculture development and agrobiodiversity conservation have been promoted and established.
• The data could facilitate and foster the collaboration between researchers, organizations, and initiatives for funding opportunities, research development, initiatives support, and development. 
• The data allows more comprehensive analysis for further comparisons of integrated landscape initiatives both within and across the Latin America and the Caribbean region(e.g. [1–5]. 

Data Description
The dataset describes 104 integrated landscape initiatives. We collected the information through an online survey responded in 2012 by the initiative leaders or managers [See 1 for more details]. The survey collected information about the initiatives’ location and context, motivations and impetus, participants and stakeholders, investments and governance structures, outcomes, and most and least successful aspects [1].

Experimental Design, Materials and Methods
We searched integrated landscape management initiatives through online searches (project databases and websites of conservation and rural development organizations) and expert networks (e.i. LFPN). We screened the initiatives identified and selected ongoing initiatives that had been active for at least two years at the time of the survey (or, if less than two years old, were continuations of prior efforts in the same landscape). This process yielded a total of 382 initiatives that potentially fulfilled the definition of an integrated landscape initiative[1]:
1. Explicitly seek to simultaneously improve food production, biodiversity or ecosystem conservation, and rural livelihoods; 
2. Work at a landscape scale and include deliberate planning, policy, management, or supporting activities at this scale; 
3. Involve inter-sectoral coordination or alignment of activities, policies, or investments at the level of ministries, local government entities, farmer and community organizations, NGOs, donors, and the private sector. 
4. Are highly participatory, supporting adaptive, collaborative management within a social learning framework. 
We designed a survey with 45 questions (~40 min. to complete) to capture the initiatives context, motives, investments, stakeholders involved and outcomes. Before distributing the survey widely, we conducted a pilot test with practitioners from 15 initiatives and revised the survey as needed. We invited the 382 initiatives leaders to complete the online survey with a response rate of 45% (representatives of 173 initiatives responded the survey). We screened the survey responses for completeness and concurrence with our definition of an integrated landscape initiative. A total of 104 initiatives met these criteria. We used the online service, Survey Monkey, to administer the survey, which we made available in Spanish, Portuguese and English [1]. The survey with the raw close-ended questions contains information for 138 variables. The original survey is available in Appendix 1 and also available in [1] 

Acknowledgments
We thank all the survey respondents for taking time to share their experiences with integrated landscape management. Diana Vega and Camila Medeiros provided excellent research assistance. We also thank Alexandra Judd of the Iberoamerican Model Forest Network for helping to contact with ILI practitioners from Model Forests within LAC. We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the EcoAgriculture Partners, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the CGIAR Research Program on Water, Land and Ecosystems.