VSA Compact Transparency Tool Background Review: Useful Landscape Tools, Resources, and Standards

The presentation provides brief descriptions of useful landscape tools, resources and standards. These include standard setting initiatives that provide guidance and metrics to measure progress in jurisdictional or landscape initiatives such as the Commodities Jurisdictions Approach (CJA), Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance, and Landscape standard. Performance platforms providing information on jurisdictions and jurisdictional and landscape initiatives using a standard set of criteria highlighted include Governors’ Climate and Forest Platform (GCF), Produce Protect Platform, Landscape Assessment Framework.

The presentation also includes case Studies to highlight different types of jurisdictional and landscape initiatives, such as Produce, Conserve, Include (PCI) in Mato Grosso, Brazil, Jurisdictional Palm Oil Certification, and Carbon Fund in Madre de Dios, Peru. Other resources and related initiatives presented include the Accountability Framework initiative (AFi), Tropical Forest Alliance (TFA), and the Balikpapan Challenge.

Key insights include that to reward early progress, performance metrics need to incorporate process indicators (planning, agreeing on goals, setting baseline); inclusive, multistakeholder platforms that include local government are essential to provide structures and mechanisms for developing local compacts, driving progress and reporting and verification; and there’s a need for clear incentives for local producers, that could be promoted by including goals on improving productivity and/or improving farmer livelihoods.