Towards more sustainable land use in lowland tropical regions

Integrating information from Project Groups A, B and C has substantial implications for reconciling ecological and socioeconomic needs in Sumatran lowlands towards more sustainable land use and landscapes.

Local, national, and international policies that are targeting sustainability of land-use systems can have unintended consequences on land-use change and on ecological and socioeconomic functions. Such unintended consequences of policies increase with ecological and socioeconomic heterogeneity and with the targeted scale of the policy interventions.

Improved policy measures are possible, if (a) heterogeneous relations between ecological and socio-economic functions at different scales inform the design of prospective policies, and (b) acceptance of local stakeholders and stakeholders from outside are integrated in a participative process from the early design onwards.