Landscape Outcome Assessment Methodology (LOAM) in Practice
Conservation and development agencies, including WWF, IUCN and the World Bank, are increasingly focusing their efforts at a landscape level. In doing so, they face many challenges including identifying key values or functions of the landscape as a whole, as well as measuring and monitoring outcomes of their efforts in terms of biodiversity conservation, livelihood improvements and environmental services.
To help address these challenges, WWF developed the LOAM – Landscape Outcome Assessment Methodology. This approach is aimed at enabling those working on landscape scale initiatives to be better able to measure, monitor and communicate the nature and extent to which a landscape is changing over time with respect to a small number of agreed conservation and livelihood outcomes.
LOAM can also help us to understand better how our projects or programmes can have, or are having an impact within the context of the larger landscape. In this way, we can adapt our own activities so that, along with all the other things that influence the future of that landscape, they can help it to develop in a positive way.
This practical guide shows how one can go about implementing the methodology. It is based on hands-on experience gained to date in developing the approach.