The Honduran Production Valleys

Abstract

This thesis initiated from a project worked on in conjunction with the PBL, the Environmental Agency of the Netherlands. The project, with PBL, follows three case studies of landscapes to research the implementation of the landscape approach for reaching the new framework of sustainable development goals, developed at the 2015 climate change talks. The landscape approach uses integrated landscape management (ILM) to attempt to achieve these SDG’s. This is with the integration of all the varying stakeholders on the landscape level to address global challenges. ILM addresses the planet and environment, economic stability and governmental agendas as well as social development. It addresses all the stakeholders in the scope of the place, for agreed management of future landscape development.

The landscapes researched were firstly the Northern Coastline of Honduras, secondly the Atewa Range in Ghana and thirdly the Ihelmi Cluster in Tanzania, all three with challenging land use issues by numerous actors, both locally and globally.

This thesis has come as follow up to the research, by choosing one of the landscapes; that being the Northern Coastline of Honduras, and the challenge it faces with the monopoly of palm oil agriculture. As addition to the research done on the landscape, the thesis will result in a spatial landscape design which hopes to bring the research learnt of Honduras, and knowledge gained from using the landscape approach as methodology, into a reality.