Now that you have seen how important it is to restore degraded landscape you might ask yourself – how do I go about doing that? How do I even know if a landscape is degraded or not? How much can I expect to restore? What is it exactly in the landscape that we are restoring? You need to be able to answer these types of questions before you even start thinking about making a cost-benefit analysis or calculating a loss-profit statement for a restoration project. In the upcoming videos you will learn how to recognise healthy landscapes from degraded ones, and the types of interventions needed to recover degraded ecosystems. It is essential to have a good grasp of the natural processes of the land in order to be able to make decisions as an investor, business manager, or employer that maximise the impact of every dollar invested in restoring a landscape.

How much is a plot of land worth? Is it worth as much as the crops grown on it? Is it worth as much as the next farmer is willing to pay for it? Who incurs the cost of damages to the land? What if you asked yourself this question: "What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?” If you knew you could never see a plot of land again, would its value change? Rachel Carson, a pioneer of the global environmental movement, posed these questions to the readers of her ground-breaking book Silent Spring, encouraging them to open their eyes to the rampant problem of degradation of the natural environmental happening all around us. The world of business thrives on quantifying just about anything. If we want to make landscape restoration a financially sustainable activity then we need economic valuation methods to put a price tag on both the value of landscapes and ecosystem services, as well as on the cost and foregone revenues from landscape degradation. In this week, we will build on what you learned last week about the natural aspects of landscapes – to learn how to calculate the potential savings we can make by avoiding further degradation and the profits we stand to make from restored landscapes.

In this week, you will learn about a way of approaching landscape restoration projects involving business, termed the 4 returns approach. We will travel to the Commonland projects in South Africa, Spain, Australia, and The Netherlands to hear from farmers and business developers how degraded landscapes can be restored while simultaneously creating sustainable businesses that generate employment and income for local communities. Through these examples you will learn what kind of roles are involved and what skills are needed to initiate and carry out this kind of restoration projects. Moreover, you will learn what kind of stakeholders to involve in a landscape restoration partnership and which phases a 4 returns restoration project goes through. We hope that these vivid examples of real-life restoration projects serve as a jumping board for you to play your own role in such a project.

“To sin by silence, when we should protest, // Makes cowards out of men.” Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Protest, 1914 Poems of Problems. These words are the start of a piercing poem titled Protest written by American poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox. This week you learn about wicked problems and why we can consider land degradation to be a wicked problem. The wickedness of land degradation often makes us feel powerless and we might shy away from even beginning to tackle it. In exactly that moment we should heed Wilcox’s advice, and speak up and act, for otherwise we may later be judged by ourselves and our heirs to this planet as the cowards who were not brave enough to act and do something about landscape degradation. First, we will examine what wicked problems are and the characteristics by which we can dissect them. You will learn about the way in which the state, civil society, and private sector play a role in wicked problems. Now, all this talk of wickedness may leave you feeling gloomy. Fear not. You will also learn about a specific tool that allows you to speak up and act as a professional addressing landscape degradation. That tool is partnerships. We will examine how you can build a strategic and effective partnership by recruiting the right partners, forging the right relationships and atmosphere amongst them, and distributing roles and responsibilities in an equitable manner.

We are drawing close to the end of this course on business-driven landscape restoration. You have been introduced to thinking about landscapes as a scientist and as a business professional.In this week we will introduce several new tools. First, we will study the business model canvas, which can be readily understood and applied by biologists, geologists, investors, and managers. The canvas is a great tool for communication, especially in landscape restoration projects where different stakeholders work together. The business model canvas gets at the heart of what value such a project will create, how and for whom, and how the project will generate revenues to be financially sustainable. Second, we will also introduce an alternative version of the business model canvas, the PPP canvas - public-private partnership canvas - which is particularly useful when the stakeholders of the project come from different industries and disciplines, and from all three sectors of society; the state, civil society, and private sector. Lastly, we will look at sustainable business model innovation which is process of identifying, designing, and implementing a business model that generates sustainable value for the firm, its stakeholders, and the socio-ecological system in which it is embedded.

“Historically, we have found countless ways to justify our continued exploitation of the environment: discovery, tradition, Manifest Destiny, even Chinese hoax. But we’re all out of excuses now. Each passing day swells the data on greenhouse gases and extreme weather, shrinking reservoirs and rising sea levels, and diminishing biodiversity. Our resources are finite, the window for change if not firmly shut, is certainly closing, and all life must adapt or be doomed.” By now you may be both dismayed by the immense threat that landscape degradation is to human and economic development and the future of habitable life on Planet Earth, but also inspired by the prospect of designing and implementing business-driven solutions that will halt and reverse the problem. As the quote says, we must adapt in order to escape the dooming prospect we face if we take no action. Over the course of the past six weeks we have examined landscapes from a ecological and economic perspectives. You have been seen examples of real-life restoration projects and been introduced to methods such as Total Economic Valuation, the 4 returns approach, partnerships, business model canvas, and PPPcanvas. Now you have the opportunity to apply the knowledge and methods you have accumulated to a restoration project that is currently ongoing. The Commonland organisation has been working to restore degraded land in Southern Spain with some progress but setbacks as well. It is now soliciting your help in this project! Study the case carefully and the assignment information. Then be as analytical and creative as you can to develop a solution. Your fellow students will review your solution and you will be asked to do the same for a few other fellow students. Good luck!