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This paper seeks to offer an overview on the theme of “Traditional agricultural landscapes and indigenous and community conserved areas.” It aims to explore questions related to the special values of these landscapes, the threats facing them and ways to sustain them in the future. It also aims to discuss recent developments in conservation, particularly related to governance of protected areas and the emerging recognition of “indigenous and community‐conserved areas” in diverse regions worldwide.

Drawing on a collection of conceptual papers and case‐studies presented at a workshop (Cusco, Peru, 2008) and compiled in the present issue of this journal, this overview paper explores key issues and challenges related to community stewardship of traditional agricultural landscapes. It synthesizes a few common themes emerging from these papers and the discussions in Cusco, and reviews these in the context of global developments in protected areas and conservation.

Across diverse settings, traditional agricultural landscapes, created by indigenous peoples and local communities, have been shaped by the dynamic interaction of people and nature over time. These landscapes, rich in agro‐biodiversity as well as inherent wild biodiversity and cultural and spiritual values, embody human ingenuity and are continually evolving. Key points emerging from this review include the role of traditional ecological knowledge systems, cultural practices and social institutions in creating these landscapes and ensuring their stewardship; the importance of securing customary governance; and need for dynamic socio‐ecological indicators to measure the resilience of different landscapes.

The paper shows that these “living landscapes” play a vital role in sustaining agro‐biodiversity as well as inherent wild biodiversity values, ensuring ecosystem function, and supporting livelihoods and food security. These landscapes and their associated management systems have much to teach us about sustainability and resilience in the face of global change.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the community conservation movement in Oaxaca, a bioculturally diverse state in southern Mexico, with a particular focus on indigenous and community conserved areas (ICCAs) as an emergent designation over the last decade.

A survey of indigenous and mestizo community conserved areas in Oaxaca was conducted in 2009 as part of a broader inventory of the ICCAs of Belize, Guatemala and Mexico.

The survey revealed 126 sites of community conservation in Oaxaca covering 375,457 ha, 14.5 percent more than the 327,977 ha included in nationally decreed Protected Natural Areas in the state. A total of 43 sites are certified community reserves comprising 103,102 ha, or 68.7 percent of the 150,053 ha included in the 137 certified sites recognized nationally. The diversity of Oaxaca's ICCAs, which have emerged creatively in variable cultural, ecological and historical contexts throughout the state, provide an opportunity to assess the effectiveness of community conservation efforts.

Mexico is one of the few countries that have an extensive inventory of ICCAs that could be incorporated into an international registry being formulated by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre.

The paper aims to present a three‐step approach that enables companies to define and quantify what customers value, systematically deploy their resources to deliver greater value than the competition, and capture a greater share of the value delivered to customers.

Each of the three the three steps in the value creation cycle is examined, and the tools and approaches that leading companies use to maximize shareholder wealth are outlined.

A customer‐value based approach to management can help companies instill a fact‐based decision‐making process in the enterprise. This promotes faster growth through differentiated customer investment. It ensures that the highest return initiatives are prioritized. Enterprises using this disciplined three‐step approach will be well positioned to better understand value potential, creating value, delivering value, and managing their market position to maximize the value they capture.

Mastering the value cycle enables enterprises to win in both the customer markets and the financial markets. In short, it leads them to long‐term profitable growth.

This paper seeks to describe an attempt to assess at the local level the progress that has been internationally achieved in recognition of community and indigenous rights, and of indigenous and community conserved areas. An action‐research exercise was implemented in Ethiopia with a mobile indigenous people of evaluating customary as well as government‐led governance of the environment, with the objective of strengthening the capacity of the Borana‐Oromo to conserve their landscape.

This paper is based on collaborative research implemented by the authors in 2002 while SOS Sahel Ethiopia was introducing collaborative forest management, and on a 2007 action research project specifically designed to broaden the scope of the involvement of the customary leadership in sustainable landscape management.

The research demonstrates the high degree of articulation and efficacy of customary governance as opposed to the failure of State‐centric attempts to protect specific areas within the broader landscape. Customary institutions, however, are increasingly delegitimised and incapable of coping with new challenges such as massive immigration, political marginalisation and de facto land privatisation.

The action‐research was insufficient to achieve the goal due to limitations in the national legislation, inefficiency by the government in implementing the existing policies, and the persisting practice of imposing development with insufficient prior consultation.

Based on an informed review of the international and national legislation and policies, the customary leaders of the Borana have released a public statement asking for support in addressing the gaps and problems they have identified, particularly achieving legal recognition of the customary institutions and customary laws in relation to biodiversity conservation. At national level it was recommended to organize a workshop on community conservation of biodiversity and community rights, with the objective of disseminating awareness about the latest instruments and Resolutions in the context of IUCN and the CBD.

The customary governance of the Borana is based on the gadaa generation class system, highly articulated in terms of norms and procedures. The territory is vast and it includes government‐protected areas due to the importance of the biodiversity. The case contributes to raising awareness about the relevance of legislation and enhancement of rights at national level.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the application of traditional Māori horticultural and ethnopedological practices in New Zealand whereby an inclusive “whole of landscape” approach known as “ki uta ki tai” – literally from “the source to the oceans” – is applied in a contemporary landscape.

A review of the traditional knowledge and practices around Māori horticulture and pedology was undertaken through interviews within Māori communities, including practitioners of this knowledge, and a literature review.

Traditional Māori practices contribute to a cultural management tool known as kaitiakitanga – literally the act of stewardship – which requires practitioners to contribute to the “landscape management” continuum based on a holistic approach reflecting the traditional and contemporary management needs. Examples of cultural praxis applied under these systems include the local knowledge aligned to soil origin, type and manageable characteristics and crop management praxis such as site selection, crop variety selection and rotation, or land and soil amendments.

Traditional Māori knowledge is primarily transmitted orally and retained within the community itself. Through colonisation this knowledge has been marginalised and is now retained by only a few experts across tribal regions. There is considerably more knowledge still held within communities, especially relative to the practical application of kaitiakitanga in the modern world.

Through political processes of the previous 170 years in New Zealand, Māori horticulturists are now restricted to pockets of lands in a discontinuous landscape over which they have a limited involvement. Urbanisation of the Māori community and ongoing marginalisation of traditional knowledge have further exasperated customary land and resource management approaches. Recent legislation includes reference to some traditional practices; however, there is limited statutory obligation on resource managers to practically apply them.

The specialist traditional knowledge aligned to horticulture and pedology has been relegated to only a few practitioners. None‐the‐less Māori continue to manage their crops with a wider, localised understanding of the landscape and of how decisions are likely to impinge on other sites within their traditional boundaries, drawn from the traditional knowledge of their forebears.

The purpose of this paper is to present an approach aimed at facilitating nature conservation that builds on the ecological and social synergies that exist in traditionally managed landscapes in and around protected areas and integrates conservation and social goals to achieve a reduction in the levels of marginalization of indigenous and local communities while preventing ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss.

Drawing on literature research and insights from political and historical ecology and systems theory, a framework was developed to aid the understanding of human‐environment interactions taking place in traditionally managed ecosystems and landscapes and to monitor the role that these interactions play in the maintenance of such systems.

Virtually all ecosystems and landscapes must be seen as coupled social‐ecological systems whose ability to respond to stresses and change derives from ecological and social characteristics, as well as from the link between these natural and human components. A variety of mechanisms by which indigenous and rural communities help anchor biodiversity and contribute to social‐ecological resilience were identified.

This paper challenges the rationale behind exclusionary approaches to nature conservation. Indicators are developed to facilitate a shift towards the widespread adoption of “human‐centered” conservation practices, in which nature conservation benefits from the inclusion and empowerment of human communities instead of their exclusion and marginalization.

This study aims to explore the following questions: What are resources for humans and what are not? How does nature “become” a resource? Does the result of cultural resources' re‐identification and utilization benefit cultural conservation?

The main methods used were participant observation (from 2005 to 2007) and in‐depth interviews. In‐depth interviews included local elites, wetland farmers, and local tourism business owners.

The process of culture becoming resources includes three stages: resource identification, meaning‐giving, and social reduction. The achievement of each stage is a result of the interactions of local powers. When the aims of the identification and utilization of cultural resources excessively combine with some interests of capitalism, there is often a conflict between preservation and development.

The results of the analysis suggest that, if this program could acquire local consensus and local participation, it could really benefit cultural resource conservation.

This study proposes the “indigenous concept of resource” as a critical viewpoint on the current concept of resource.

This paper aims to explore how Andean knowledge and culture have shaped mountain ecosystems by building cultural landscapes where agrobiodiversity is created and recreated, water is domesticated (seeded and harvested), and where a harmonious relationship with the Earth and the Universe is kept.

Through the use of primary and secondary sources, the information is then organized detailing a synthesis of thoughts and joint research studies conducted by various authors regarding the valuable contributions made by the Andean culture.

This paper finds that strategies for facing the ecological crisis affecting planet Earth are being developed: the Pleiades and the Andean Cross continue to be observed in order to predict the weather and climate and make decisions related to traditional agricultural systems; cultural landscapes are being created and maintained; and water continues to be domesticated.

The tropical Andes of Peru would be in the third country most affected by global climate change worldwide. The severe impacts of the global phenomenon on mountain ecosystems and cultural landscapes are many, all of which are affecting food security of large human groups and traditional lifestyles of communities and farmers.

Drawing on my own experiences at the University of California, Santa Barbara as a college professor of radical social change for 31 years who has been focused on the climate crisis for the past 10, I explore the crisis of higher education with respect to this most pressing existential challenge of the twenty-first century and propose various approaches, actions, activities, and projects for both classroom teachers and networks of educators.

These include the UC-CSU NXTerra Knowledge Action Network, the UCSB-developed nearly carbon neutral conference, and engaging students in designing and implementing systemic alternatives outside the classroom in their own communities such as Eco Vista in the 23,000-person community of Isla Vista just adjacent to UC Santa Barbara, among others.

The essay will end with a vision of a new type of university, exemplified in the world-spanning Ecoversities Alliance, and dreamed of in Transition U and Eco Vista U, two prototypes that I have been involved in co-creating with students, staff, faculty and community members in Santa Barbara, California, and in the Transition US movement.