ABSTRACT
The impact of human activity in Africa can be seen across its landscapes, with complex mosaics of farmed land, forest, villages, towns and cities, and less habited areas of the continent. The emergence of landscape level initiatives based on the concept of landscape multifunctionality is a relatively new direction in African development initiatives. African landscapes are subject to the vagaries of global and local political and economic forces, particularly with regard to food production. Agriculture is a core feature of African landscapes, both rural and urban, and agricultural production employs over 60% of African people, providing both economic livelihoods and food. Current food systems are based on commercialised, industrialised agriculture, requiring intensification of production, economies of scale, and engaging with global market forces. The impact of this approach on the existing structure, scale, and diversity of African landscapes is significant, with global land grabs, homogenisation of landscapes, urbanisation, growing populations, and climate change. This chapter analyses challenges to land use and land use change and discusses new and emerging landscape scale initiatives in the continent, drawing on two case studies, Kafa Zone in southwest Ethiopia, and northern Uganda. The chapter concludes that landscape scale policy and management is an increasingly important focus in Africa, as globally, to address the complexities of food production and poverty alleviation, across both commercialised and smallholder agriculture, and maintaining the ecological base and multifunctional interactions between landscapes and people.
