The Landscape Approach

The Convention on Biological Diversity’s most significant component is the 12 Malawi Principles, also commonly referred to as the Ecosystem Approach. And what these describe is a management system akin to feudalism. But while I covered those in the past, I only partially covered the other related ‘approach’ of importance.

And as luck would have it, the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice of the CBD adopted 10 principles describing said in 2013.

I previously covered the Landscape Approach over here, though to be honest, it’s more about the implications thereof -

Mark Rutte's Nigeria 419

The article to which I refer in this article can be located over here¹. ‘Ten principles for a landscape approach to reconciling agriculture, conservation, and other competing land uses‘

And let’s have a quick look at who wrote this literary masterpiece. CIFOR. And CIFOR. … and CIFOR. Oh, and CIFOR. And finally, we have CIFOR again along with 3 employees of the Center for Tropical Environmental and Sustainability Science.

And let’s work out what kind of ‘best available science’ we’re up against, and exactly how long ago the ‘Landscape Approach’ was allegedly invented (which is another of those little tricks they always play). In fairness, this is one of the exceptions where I have located references a fair while back, but these always slightly… change along the way.

Regardless, definitions were all over the map - even in the material released by the Convention on Biological Diversity through the 1990s. Unsurprising, really, as they didn’t clarify what was meant by ‘Ecosystem Approach’ until quite far down the line either. In spite thereof they quite simply knew we had to have it because it is awesome. Same goes for the ‘Landscape Approach’, it would appear.

The WWF advocated conservation in broad lines of said… undefined… landscape context regardless. As did the IUCN, in their 2007 book on the topic.

I mean, it’s kind of impressive if you think about it. If I couldn’t provide an express, clear definition of a topic, I wouldn’t be able to write a book about it. Very, very impressive, really. Well, or perhaps they fully understood what it was, but it was important that the peasants didn’t.

And in 2011 - still with no set definition - JL Pfund ‘… focused on wider landscape approaches to integrate agriculture, conservation, and other functions…‘

Which is even more impressive, really. He started work to expand a broadly undefined concept, to include even… wider… arbitrary concepts, such as ‘other functions’.

In other words - compound ignorance. Rumsfeld’s ‘unknown unknowns’.

Unless you were among the selected few.

Before we start going through the principles, I suggest reading up on the ‘Ecosystem Approach’, because in this context it’s important. In essence, it describes stakeholder feudalism, ruled by… whoever produces the ‘best available science’.

The Ecosystem Approach

So with that in mind… 10 principles, and these were adopted by the SBSTTA of the CBD. Catchy. Reminds me of all those organisations and initiatives of the Soviet Union. Those also, always, had some ridiculous shortform, whereas the West tended to make things sound more exciting than they truly were.

Anyway, you’ll be best pleased to know that this work represents the consensus of a significant number of major actors. And that, of course, is how the best available science is produced - through voting. Just as we discovered in 1979… and never mind ICSU ensuring only people on board with the ‘carbon CONsensus’ were invited to vote.

And if you question said ‘consensus’, then you’re likely to lose your job for voicing dissent, because it - as we discovered during the scamdemic - kills grannies! But hey, at least you don’t live in France, where people questioning quackzines could be jailed.

Principle 1 - ‘Continual learning and adaptive management‘.

The first thing to know about nature is that it’s infinitely complex. Quite literally unpredictable - within reason of course. Place an ant on a garden tile on a hot summers day, and not even the finest shipload of Gates-philantrophy funded high priests of the consensus can predict its path. Yet, they’ll attempt to convince you that they CAN predict an entire ecosystem containing millions of ants, along with spiders, birds, snakes, drop bears, unicorns, the wind, rain, and fire-breathing dragons taking colossal dumps as they fly over said ‘landscape’.

It’s quack science. It is absolutely quack science. There is absolutely no way to predict macro through completely and entirely dismissing micro. And they absolutely are dismissing micro, because what they tend to do, is apply ‘approximations’ in expressly the way you’d improve land tiles when playing a game of Civilisation on your computer. It’s absolutely beyond the ridiculous that they even contemplate realigning the ‘new economy’ around this concept, because it will lead to more fraud than you can possibly imagine in a heartbeat.

ENviRON

Of course - they already know all of this. And to compensate, they decided to adopt ‘adaptive management’ as the solution. Which in short means is that all they have to do, is fabricate another ‘best available scientific consensus’, and they can - and will - change direction with impunity. What I am getting at here is that this will enable arbitrary rule. And that’s by intent. Because it’ll fit like a hand in glove with the Ecosystem Approach, and when you consider the obvious, accompanying enforcement mechanism, you will accept your marching orders or your kids will starve. It’s not hyperbole, it happened to doctors during the scamdemic.

You can then consider the ‘continual learning’, which in short means they’ll progressive update your indoctrination to include the new ‘best available scientific consensus’.

Principle 2 - ‘Common concern entry point‘

I could ask for no better example to illuminate quite how far off reality from where these people operate than the following claim -

‘Trust emerges when objectives and values are shared‘

No. Trust emerges on the back of history, and reputation. Sharing values with a drug dealer doesn’t mean he won’t rip you off in the dark corner of the night club.

‘Each stakeholder will only join the process if they judge it to be in their interest‘

In whose interest, exactly? The other stakeholders, ie, the stakeholders representing the higher-level interests perchance? If so, that interpretation would align with moving decisions up the hierarchy in the Ecosystem Approach, thereby excluding those further down in the ‘inclusive’ and ‘participatory democracy’. If, however, it means the stakeholders themselves, the sentence is meaningless, because they probably wouldn’t pay attention anyway.

Principle 3 - ‘Multiple scales‘

… I mean, it’s just beyond the absurd by now, and we’re only in principle 3. I quote -

‘Outcomes at any scale are shaped by processes operating at other scales. Influences include feedback, synergies, flows, interactions, and time lags, as well as external drivers and demands‘

I could systematically go through each one, outlining how all of this works on the back of misguided claims of harbouring perfect knowledge, and that each one of them could lead to a system working 99.99% of the time, but unfortunately, disastrously collapse when the inevitable black swan events arrive. But I won’t.

Because it’s really rather obvious what this points to. These lunatic general systems theory zealots legitimately believe that they can predict every single system, at every single scale, all of the time. It’s only a matter of how much surveillance they need to run on the uncertainty principle.

It will never work. It will never work. Sure, it will work for some period of time for the most general cases… but those inevitable disasters? Oh well, how convenient they’re angling for internet censorship, and top-down controls, eh?

The reality here is that the ‘correct’ scale for almost any issue is infinitely complex by itself. Sure, you can - best case - place a ‘water landscape’ on top of an aquifer, but other ‘ecosystem services’ will not be quite that simple to predict, especially as the valuation thereof include components of deeply subjective valuation which would change if even one particularly dovated individual passed away, and this all leads to -

Principle 4 - ‘Multifunctionality‘

Well, at least it’s short. What it says is that the arbitrary geographic range of an UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in Thailand selected for monetisation through GEF… sorry, the Landscape Approach selected for ‘sustainable’ water exploitation might overlap geographic ranges used by ‘philanthropes’ monetising other ‘ecosystem services’ like timber, eco-tourism, or even blue carbon credits off a UNESCO Heritage site somewhere in Indonesia. And yes - these overlaps can span nation states, but that’s not covered here. Because land ownership rights… well… they appear to have flown away along with that unicorn listed in principle 1.

Principle 5 - ‘Multiple stakeholders‘

I’m somewhat amused that this is the ‘best available definition’, in fact so good, that the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Science Body… wait, excuse me… hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha…

… right, back. Setting aside the missing definition of ‘equity’, setting aside the apparent belief that with said perfect application of said - undefined - equity will lead to an optimal outcome, and a magic loss of corruption, and setting aside that the text itself states that - ‘… efficient pursuit of negotiated solutions may involve only a subset of stakeholders‘, and the sheer hopefulness of - ‘Solutions should encompass a fair distribution of benefits and incentives‘… wait, I forget. What was my point again, beyond outlining the ridiculousness of it all? But it predictably gets worse -

‘Developing a landscape approach requires a patient iterative process of identifying stakeholders‘

At least it outs the primary issue of the ‘Ecosystem Approach’. Exactly who should iterate said ‘stakeholder’ selection process in order to find the ‘correct’ ones?

The answer here would appear quite obvious - whoever is above them in the hierarchy. And should the ‘top stakeholder’ violently disagree with everyone, they can of course simply overrule everyone in the process regardless, on account of new ‘best available science’ quickly fabricated to build his case to suit the ‘adaptive management’ outlined in principle 1.

This is arbitrary rule. That’s what it is. Whoever controls the money can fabricate the ‘best available science’ and force everyone in line. Finally -

‘Although many management agencies aspire to involving all stakeholder groups in decision-making, the transaction costs of doing this comprehensively can be prohibitive and total agreement can be elusive‘

Another get-out clause. They can’t afford to include those smelly peasants in their ‘participatory’ and ‘inclusive’ process, because the money’s just not there.

Better luck next time, eh?

Principle 6 - ‘Negotiated and transparent change logic‘

‘Trust among stakeholders is a basis for good management‘

Wait, wait, wait, they clearly made a mistake. Here, let me fix it -

‘Good management is a basis for trust among stakeholders‘

In a way, it’s somewhat cathartic. Because these Marxists have deliberately corrupted the meaning of every word, and every sentence, and this is yet another example. Just because I don’t trust a ‘stakeholder’ on a personal level, or even a roomful of ‘stakeholders’, does not mean we can’t together arrive at conclusions in broad agreement. Sure, trusting one another might accelerate the process, even lead to less contractual legalese, but the outcome does not depend upon personal relationships. However, trust will evaporate, if governance is terrible - which it tends to be under arbitrary rule.

The inclusion of ‘shared vision’ is also of interest here, especially when you consider the comment on the ‘stakeholder’ selection process in principle 5. Finally -

‘All stakeholders need to understand and accept the general logic, legitimacy, and justification for a course of action, and to be aware of the risks and uncertainties‘

Under arbitrary rule, and a ‘stakeholder’ selection process excluding you from ‘participation’ because of your ideology… this will only happen under threat of violence.

Principle 7 - ‘Clarification of rights and responsibilities‘

‘Access to a fair justice system allows for conflict resolution and recourse‘

I could here spend hours, documenting systemic corruption by Biden, Ursula van der Leyen, Clinton and so forth. If you believe for one second that their definition of the word ‘fair’ matches yours, then you deserve every bit of what’s coming.

‘The rights and responsibilities of different actors need to be clear to, and accepted by, all stakeholders‘

This will only ever be applied in one direction, of course.

‘Clarifying rights and responsibilities is now replacing the command-and-control approach‘

I was going to ignore this. Then I noticed who penned the referenced study². That’s right - the lead author of this current study which loves arbitrary rule ‘adaptive governance’… also acted lead on the reference. No points for seeing where this is going. But hey, from the conclusion anyway -

‘… forest governance will continue to evolve (as it has for hundreds of years) and that there should never be an attempt to set governance in a rigid straightjacket for all time—change will always be needed and the ultimate test of macro-level governance will be its ability to facilitate the arrangements that meet the needs at any one location or point in time‘

Self-referencing ideology, in short.

Principle 8 - ‘Participatory and user-friendly monitoring‘

Let’s make this one rapid - ‘Systems that integrate different kinds of information need to be developed‘

That’s otherwise titled an ‘Information Clearinghouse’. You could also call it a ‘Ministry of Truth’, if you wish. Centralisation of information, that’s what it calls for.

INFOTERRA; The International Referral System

It goes on - ‘no single stakeholder has a unique claim to relevant information‘

… as dictated by whom, exactly?

‘… stakeholders should be able to generate, gather, and integrate the information they require to interpret activities, progress, and threats…‘

I detect no wording about said generated information being made available to anyone else in the system, of course. Without this ability, it’s practically meaningless. And those ministries of truth… sorry, those ‘Information Clearinghouses’… well, exactly who get to staff those?

Principle 9 - ‘Resilience‘

There’s usually one or two baffle-them-with-bs principles in these documents. Though this one appears to have… let me see… ten, this ninth does stand out.

‘Wholesale unplanned system changes are usually detrimental and undesirable. System-level resilience can be increased through an active recognition of threats and vulnerabilities‘

… if those threats were recognised then it wouldn’t be an unplanned change, unless the central planner - as per usual - failed.

‘Actions need to be promoted that address threats and that allow recovery after perturbation through improving capacity to resist and respond‘

… again, how will they improve capacity when the threat is unrecognised?

‘Factors that contribute to system resilience are diverse and reflect ecological, social, and institutional attributes. Resilience may not be well understood in every situation, but can be improved through local learning‘

What a joke. Let me rephrase -

‘Unplanned system changes - unless the outcome of poor planning - are commonly caused by unrecognised ecological, social, or even institutional threats. To overcome, we must learn from our failures and not make the same mistake twice.‘

Well, durr. Except, of course, that - as per usual - there’s a hidden intent. More on that, but let’s first complete this… quatrain -

‘The challenge in agricultural landscapes is often to bring about transformational change while maintaining the attributes of the landscape that provide resilience to undesirable changes‘

Said resilience is ultimately a reflection of the ability of the system to self-repair. Consequently, what we speak of here is regenerative control. When shocks occour, resilience is the ability of the system to cope with said shock, or even reliably ‘reboot’ so to speak, returning the ‘system’ back to its prior state.

Of course, said ‘system’ fits into other systems, and consequently, it’s easy to map to this onto general systems theory, but let’s not. Let’s instead locate the primary of those two references - the book, released by… well, let’s be honest… the Foundation class.

And you’ll never guess where it leads.

The management of resilience can be compartmentalised into four separate categories, and each should be considered separately (no ‘holistic approach’ for them) -

• Management

• Financial intervention
  Assistance, investments, subsidies, taxes

• Governance
  Laws, regulations, policies

• Education
  Indoctrination of the people

It’s easy to mock - and rest assured that I will - but all of these feed into their impressive, beautiful, deep, meaningful, stellar insight -

‘Adaptive Management‘

Now please excuse me… hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha…

So, to recap, the reference in principle 7 on ‘rights and responsibilities’ led to… ‘adaptive management’, and the reference in principle 9 on ‘resilience’ also leads to… ‘adaptive management‘. And - by sheer coincidence, I’m sure - principle 1 is expressly on ‘adaptive management‘.

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself, because the book turns into a self-deprecating comedy act only on the following page -

‘In theory this all sounds great. In practice, adaptive management, and especially active adaptive management, can be challenging to implement. Carl Walters is one of the main architects and champions of adaptive management, and his analysis of why it often fails…‘

If it often fails, then perhaps - at the very least - it’s because it’s not sufficiently well understood, because it’s poorly described? Oh wait, no, I’m sure that can’t be it. I’m sure it’s because that wasn’t real adaptive management, right?

And on the following page, we find this utter monstrosity -

‘And because adaptive management often shifts the status quo, stakeholders in research and management often resist it because adaptive-policy development can be perceived as a threat to existing research programs and management regimes‘

This book isn’t ‘science’. This book is subversise, crass, communist trash. Imagine my outrage, had I paid for it.

‘… active adaptive management is an important part of putting resilience thinking into practise… Strategic adaptive management (SAM) starts by defining the management objectives, in a hierarchical way…‘

Ie, we need this revolutionary model implemented for sakes of ‘resilience’, and this model needs to be hierarchical, …

‘…, which predictions were wrong, and how does the model need to be changed so that it is consistent with the outcomes of the action?‘

… which is trial-and-error, except that these Marxists have declared it not so, but -

‘State-and-transition (S&T) models (discussed in chapter 3) can be used as a basis for adaptive management provided they can be made more predictive. One way to do this is to implement them in a form that allows quantitative updating of data…‘

… and this is where it’s hard to ignore the venture into general systems theory, but -

‘Adaptive Governance. Closely related to management are the rules that prescribe it‘

… and we’ve arrived at the technocracy. Or, let’s be fair and call a spade a spade³ -

And - honestly - there’s only so many Marxist lies I can stomach -

‘Top-down, rigid, command-and-control governments are examples of being nonadaptive. Dictatorships are often like this. They might work for a while in a given situation and can even be both effective and efficient. However, nonadaptive approaches are unresponsive to changes over time or across scales and inevitably run into trouble.‘

Only a Marxist could deliver that lie without flinching. The entire description of a ‘stakeholder’ command chain is explicitly a dictatorship. And dictatorships DO change all the time, that’s why they’re considered arbitrary rule, with key word being arbitrary. Those ‘stakeholders’ who get to pick the other ‘stakeholders’ - they in effect hold all the power… apart from the power going along with that fabricated ‘scientific consensus’ of course. It’s as far removed from democracy as you can possibly get… and I genuinely am sick and tired of Marxists, their lies, and their incessant projections.

When he then goes on to detail ‘flexible instititions’, that refers to your glorious leader being able to change legislation on a whim as he sees fit, (provided the ‘scientific consensus’ has been fabricated) and a ‘multi-level governance system’ is commonly referred to as a ‘bureaucracy’.

What he enthusiastically lies about is a Soviet Union.

And - though my blood is boiling - it’s really, really important to conclude this chapter, and you’ll see why in a minute.

‘… describes polycentric systems as organizations of small-, medium-, and large-scale democratic units that allow each unit to exercise considerable independence to make and enforce rules within a circumscribed scope of authority for a specified geographical area. Some units may be general-purpose governments, whereas others may be highly specialized.’

Sure, this description doesn’t necessarily differ much from local authority vs state, but the key issue is who decides what to delegate, and who get to vote on issues in their ‘participatory stakeholder democracy’. And then there’s the issue of holding a politician responsible, when he’s got the permanent get-out-of-jail-card through the claim of ‘adapting to circumstances’. It will lead to a total lack of responsibility for those on top, but you being held to account.

‘The sorts of questions you should be asking as you contemplate adaptive governance might include… how can new, adaptive institutions be incorporated into current institutional arrangements?‘

Thankfully, that question is answered immediately below -

‘Ostrom (2009) has devised a framework for understanding the complex dynamics of social-ecological systems and identifies the following as the critical aspects of governance… Nongovernment organizations… Property-rights systems…‘

NGOs and property-rights systems. I mean, I wish I could say this was a joke, but he’s serious. The way to build ‘resilience’ into our systems is to adopt ‘adaptive governance’, and that takes place through including NGOs in the governance process and reforming land ownership rights. The guy is a full-blown surversive communist, but at least he has correctly identified why the United Nations need to be nuked from orbit.

We can then continue with ‘Network structure‘ which means elimination of social mobility, and ‘Collective-choice rules‘ which should… need no further comment.

And finally, the section on ‘Key Points for… Autocratic… Practise‘ -

‘Appropriate actions/policies depend on the phase of the adaptive cycle the focal scale is in (as well as the phases that higher and lower scales are in’

Which - again - leads to more bureaucratic control.

‘Consider all kinds of possible interventions- management, financial, governance, and education- not just the easiest or most obvious options.’

Setting aside how much they love the ‘holistic’ approach when it suits them, this also means individual actions will become almost impossibly to fully comprehend as you will always be able to find Carl Walters coming up with some idiotic explanation as to why yet another failed attempt to implement ‘wasn’t real adaptive management’

‘Consider how to best sequence the interventions you select.’

Ah, another exploitable excuse for Carl Waters.

‘How can adaptive governance be introduced?’

Oh, I don’t know, perhaps by undemocratically including NGOs in the decision making process of an undemocratic organisation⁴, and allowing them to corrupt politics inside out largely without interruption for several generations?

And finally;

Principle 10 - ‘Strengthened stakeholder capacity‘

‘People require the ability to participate effectively and to accept various roles and responsibilities. Such participation presupposes certain skills and abilities.‘

… as judged by whom? Because we already have a competence-based system. Or will these ‘skills and abilities’ be taught at a ‘life-long learning’ course on ESG marxism?

And of which ‘roles’ do we speak? And who get to assign these, and on what account? And which ‘responsibilites’ go along?

‘Effective participation makes demands of stakeholders‘

Oh wait, I recall this from principle 6 - ‘The need to coordinate activities by diverse actors requires that a shared vision can be agreed upon.‘

‘The proliferation of local nongovernmental organizations addressing rural issues is a reflection of this and is recognized by the increasing willingness of development assistance agencies to support local civil society groups‘

… it’s just such breathtaking lies. The ‘development assistance agencies‘ get to spend taxpayer money, and the ‘nongovernmental organizations addressing rural issues‘ are only there to capitalise on said.

And the instruments through which this capitalisation will be achieved are titled ecosystem services, and they are the express output of blended finance deals, structured through the Global Environment Facility, using a mixture of public taxpayer funds aka development assistance and private capital, enabling those vultures a net transfer of public funds.

And if you think that’s because they care about the ‘minorities’, the ‘refugees’, and the ‘empowerment of women and girls’ of the ‘indigenous peoples’ stuck somewhere in the Amazonian jungle who now see their ecosystem service supply of fresh water interrupted because Nestle signed a deal with the GEF, and their ecosystem service trees felled because the GEF structured another multifunctionality stakeholder agreement with the ITTO, or even Hess signing up for the rights to the carbon credits of the now-felled forests in Guyana, then - holy f-cking sh-t - do I have an ‘orange carbon sink’ to sell you that I just invented.

1. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1210595110

2. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jeffrey-Sayer/publication/263224421_Forest_Governance_in_a_Changing_World_Reconciling_Local_and_Global_Values/links/54e731d30cf277664ff7fb3b/Forest-Governance-in-a-Changing-World-Reconciling-Local-and-Global-Values.pdf

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy

4. https://archive.globalpolicy.org/ngos/ngo-un/info/res-1296.htm