CGIAR Multifunctional Landscapes

Newsletter | Issue 01 | 2026

Thriving Landscapes. Resilient Futures.

A Message from the Program Director

Why Landscapes - and Why Now

Across the world, food systems are under pressure. Agricultural expansion has increased production in some regions, yet soils are degrading. Protected areas have expanded, yet biodiversity loss continues. Climate mitigation efforts are accelerating, yet livelihoods remain fragile.

Integrated systems approaches are crucial to address these deeply entangled challenges.

The CGIAR Multifunctional Landscapes (MFL) Science Program with its 12 implementing CGIAR Centers and more than 70 partners embraces a systems approaches at a landscape scale. We see landscapes as living systems where ecological processes, production systems, markets, institutions, and social dynamics intersect.

In this newsletter, we share our vision for thriving landscapes and resilient futures. The work ahead is ambitious. Yet a growing body of evidence suggests that landscape approaches can help align production, conservation, and livelihoods, offering practical pathways toward more sustainable, equitable, and climate-resilient food systems

— Lulseged Tamene
Director,
CGIAR Multifunctional Landscapes
Science Program

Multifunctional Living Landscapes

In 2025, the Program team agreed to prioritize its research for impact in a set of Multifunctional Flagship Living Landscapes. These are strategically selected geographies where pressures on food and aquatic ecosystems, and livelihoods are most acute and where planetary boundaries are under strain.

Within these landscapes, the Program operates with its partners in specific territories and in an integrated manner to co-design and implement complementary solutions that deliver measurable outcomes.

Focus geographies for Multifunctional Living Landscapes

Learn More →

The MFL Approach: One Integrated System for Landscape Transformation

The Program envisions landscapes that are shaped and managed by diverse stakeholders, who co-design technological, socioecological, and institutional innovations, engaged in policy processes, underpinned by inclusive governance and effective planning. To achieve this vision, the Program is structured around five interdependent Areas of Work (AoWs) that function as a single integrated architecture.

Advancing Toward Our 2030 Ambition

Stories from the field: Progress Toward 2030

Kenya: Restoring Landscapes, Reclaiming Seed Sovereignty

Across the Lake Victoria Basin, farmers are restoring degraded landscapes through agroecological innovation bundles, aggregated farms, and community seed systems that strengthen biodiversity and climate resilience, as seen in Nyakach’s nature-positive farming success and how farmers are restoring their landscapes. Women-led seed banks are conserving Indigenous crop varieties and expanding diversification, showing how integrated innovation packages are strengthening seed sovereignty and community seed security while improving livelihoods.

Colombia: Agrobiodiversity & Territorial Governance in Cumbal

In the Andean landscape of Cumbal, Indigenous communities are working with MFL partners to document and restore native crop diversity while strengthening territorial governance and seed sovereignty, as highlighted in stories on neglected and underutilized species in the Cumbal Indigenous Reserve and life and seed conservation in Cumbal. Research and participatory processes, including agrobiodiversity monitoring, the Vision to Action process in the Cumbal landscape, show how community-led conservation and agroecological innovation are strengthening both livelihoods and ecosystem resilience.

Rangelands & One Health: Ethiopia & East Africa

Across the drylands of East Africa, MFL partners are strengthening rangeland stewardship through participatory governance, improved monitoring, and One Health approaches that link ecosystem health, livestock systems, and pastoral livelihoods, as explored in participatory rangeland management scaling efforts and research on willingness to pay for rangeland health services. Complementary mapping and landscape analysis including major livestock routes in Kenya and livestock mobility routes in Ethiopia are helping guide more sustainable rangeland management and regional restoration strategies.

Tunisia: Silvopastoral Systems & Market Transformation

In Tunisia’s Mediterranean drylands, MFL partners are restoring degraded landscapes through integrated silvopastoral systems that combine trees, livestock, and agroecological practices to strengthen ecosystem resilience and rural livelihoods, as highlighted in this case of silvopastoral transformation and research on markets for agroecological products. Complementary studies on financing mechanisms for agroecological transitions, geographical indication systems for olive oil, and the economic sustainability of agroecological olive systems show how restoration, governance, and market innovation can work together to transform multifunctional landscapes.

India: Agroecology, Aquatic Systems & Landscape Transitions

In Central India, MFL partners are supporting agroecological transitions through participatory innovation, integrated farming systems, and community-led landscape planning, as illustrated in work on rice–fish systems for food and nutritional security and agroecological kitchen gardens in Mandla. Complementary research on transitioning to multifunctional landscapes and farmer behaviour in agroecological transitions highlights how participatory approaches are shaping resilient food systems and sustainable landscape management.

Cambodia & Vietnam: Integrated Rice–Field Pond Systems & Agroecological Diversification

Across Mekong landscapes, MFL partners are promoting integrated rice–fish and rice–pond systems that diversify production, strengthen climate resilience, and enhance farm productivity, as illustrated in this work on rice-field ponds and resilient livelihoods and integrated rice-field pond systems for climate resilience. Complementary research on agrobiodiversity and nutrition outcomes in Northern Vietnam and the role of seed sources in vegetable agrobiodiversity highlights how diversified farming systems can improve diets, livelihoods, and ecosystem health across multifunctional landscapes.

The Rio Nexus & Global Advocacy

In 2025, the MFL program strengthened engagement across global environmental platforms, helping bring food, land, and water systems more prominently into international policy discussions. Through contributions such as CGIAR’s accreditation to UNEA and its role in global environmental policy dialogue and the momentum building toward COP30 in Road to Belém: Scaling biosolutions for soil health and climate action, MFL is helping advance integrated solutions that address climate change, biodiversity loss, and land degradation together.

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CGIAR – The largest global agricultural innovation network.

Learn more about our Centers

CGIAR MFL research is being implemented by a multi-disciplinary team of researchers and other specialists, which includes CGIAR researchers from the Alliance of Bioversity and CIAT, CIMMYT, CIP, ICARDA, IFPRI, ILRI, IITA, IWMI and Worldfish as well as researchers from CIFOR and ICRAF; CIRAD; and various national and local partner organizations, in the target countries. The Progamme also cooperates with key partners for scaling and impact and national authorities. CGIAR MFL is part of the CGIAR 2030 Research and Innovation Portfolio focuses on transforming food, land, water, and ecosystems. By treating landscapes as the unit of transformation, MFL generates actionable science through Multifunctional Living Landscapes, where integrated solutions are co-designed, governed, financed, and measured with partners.

A Message from the Program Director

Why Landscapes - and Why Now

— Lulseged Tamene Director, CGIAR Multifunctional Landscapes Science Program

Multifunctional Living Landscapes

Focus geographies for Multifunctional Living Landscapes

The MFL Approach: One Integrated System for Landscape Transformation

Advancing Toward Our 2030 Ambition

Stories from the field: Progress Toward 2030

Kenya: Restoring Landscapes, Reclaiming Seed Sovereignty

Colombia: Agrobiodiversity & Territorial Governance in Cumbal

Rangelands & One Health: Ethiopia & East Africa

Tunisia: Silvopastoral Systems & Market Transformation

India: Agroecology, Aquatic Systems & Landscape Transitions

Cambodia & Vietnam: Integrated Rice–Field Pond Systems & Agroecological Diversification

The Rio Nexus & Global Advocacy

Connect

You are receiving this newsletter because you are part of the CGIAR Multifunctional Landscapes community or have expressed interest in our work. To receive future editions and updates, please sign up here.If you prefer not to receive further communications, you may opt out here.

CGIAR – The largest global agricultural innovation network.

CGIAR @ 2026. All rights reserved.

— Lulseged Tamene
Director,
CGIAR Multifunctional Landscapes
Science Program

You are receiving this newsletter because you are part of the CGIAR Multifunctional Landscapes community or have expressed interest in our work.

To receive future editions and updates, please sign up here.

If you prefer not to receive further communications, you may opt out here.