Linking places and processes for sustainability: Social-ecological dynamics and value chains of Mediterranean landscape products (LANDSCAPE_CHAINS)

The research is organized into three projects. Project 1 provides a place-based perspective that is referring to actor networks, ecosystem services, and landscape change. It will investigate the social-ecological co-generation of landscape products and their ecosystem services. Project 2 develops a value chain-approach, focusing on flows of products, financial resources, and information. The central outcomes will be brought together in Project 3, integrating all project results and determining key leverage points for sustainable landscape management. The projects will have a comparative study design. The starting point of the multi-scale analyses will be four distinct producer landscapes: Alentejo, Portugal, and Maamora, Morocco (cork agroforestry) and Gata-Hurdes, Spain, and High Atlas, Morocco, (mixed farming and pastoralism). The research will compare: (a) each landscape product in two contrasting landscapes, one in the Southern and one in the Northern part of the Mediterranean Basin; and (b) one landscape product that represents predominantly global, long-distance value chains (cork) and one (edible tree crops) that stands for short- to mid-distance value chains. The overarching hypothesis to be explored is that landscape products empower consumers to connect to producer landscapes and to valorise social-ecological landscape characteristics through multiple flows of goods, investment, and information along value chains.