This is a short report of key learnings from the landscape solvability workshop in November 2024. We had an ambitious agenda and got into the workshop with a clear understanding that we were attempting something quite complex with describing landscapes in terms of dozens of data variables, but had to discover how to simplify this so that community stewards – volunteers and frontline workers trained on the basics of socio-ecological management of landscapes – could translate the data into actionable insights. In Oct 2023, we documented 80+ socio-ecological variables to characterize landscapes, and in the last one year we built many of them out primarily using secondary and remote sensing data, and our goal during the workshop was to ride the rollercoaster to bring down this complexity in three days!
And we did! It was nothing short of a breakthrough of how to think about landscapes and data. Read the report. Two most important elements that emerged is the concept of writing out socio-ecological patterns using a common underlying language of data, and the common layer of community stewards who are essential to catalyze community-based management of landscapes. We are looking forward to building further on these aspects.
We are also looking for people to volunteer to help collect learning resources for community stewards, build a list of additional datasets needed, and work on enhancing and defining socio-ecological patterns and building associated narratives. Let us know!
