Landcare: local action - global progress

Planet Earth is experiencing environmental change of a scale and speed without precedent, driven by climate, human population growth and changing consumption patterns. The world will need to double food production by 2050. We have double d food production at a comparable rate in the past, mainly through clearing, cultivating and irrigating more land, and through in creased use of fertilizer and improved varieties. Those options are narrowing to the point where it seems likely that food product ion by 2050 will have to be achieved using less land and water than is being used today. If the current trend towards biofuels continues, then the squeeze on land and water resources will intensify further. Significant implications arise from this scenario. Firstly, it is clear that we have to improve the manageme n t of our existing farmlands and managed forests to substantially lift productivity from the same amount of land, using less water, with higher energy and fertilizer costs, in a changing and more variable climate. In order to do this, we will need to learn, to innovate and to share knowledge better than we eve r have in the past. We will need to make t he best possible use of the rich variety of local knowledge, t he best available science, smart policies and supportive institutional frame works. We will need ways of engaging a broad cross section of land users, and of working and learning together towards shared goals, from the scale of individual fields, to farms, to whole communities, landscapes and watersheds. So we face an unprecedented production challenge, an unprecedented sustainability challenge, and to meet these we face an unprecedented learning challenge. This book illustrates how the sustainability and learning challenges are already being taken up, from the Philippines to Iceland, from South and East Africa to Germany, from the USA to Australia, under the broad banner of Landcare. Landcare is about voluntary neighbourhood groups of farmers and other committed people working together at a local level. While objectives vary across the colourful tapestry of Landcare activities internationally, they usually centre on developing, sharing and implementing more sustainable ways of managing land and water resources, conserving biodiversity and improving landscape amenity. Landcare has been operating in Australia for more than 20 years, involving between one-third and one-half of the farming community and becoming one of the country’s best known and respected environmental brands. It has sprouted in a diverse mix of other countries, with modest, sporadic assistance from Australia

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