Learning landscape sustainability and development links

Landscape is a complex of interacting ecosystems and humans. Conflicting interests among various actors with different values and rationalities occurs. A board game, the Landscape Game, was developed based on game theory to help understand the dynamics of land competition, policy measures and sustainability of a landscape. This game introduces landscape conservation, development, environmental services risks and investment alternatives. The game challenges rational players to maximize their revenues, while at the same time sustaining the landscape. Through this game, various policy instruments, e.g. rules, taxes, land use incentives and disincentives were tested. The game play results show the easiness in harmonising sustainability and development when productivity is low. If productivity increases then landscape sustainability can either increase or reduce, affected by government policies and players' actions. Lessons learned from the game can trigger changes in players' mental model. The digital version of the game provides opportunities for its wider use.