Evaluating resilience for the management of social–ecological production landscapes and seascapes in Lefke Region of North Cyprus through adaptive comanagement

The purpose of this study is to evaluate resilience for the management of social–ecological production landscapes and seascapes (SEPLS) in Lefke Region of North Cyprus through adaptive comanagement (ACM). To this end, the following key attributes of ACM within the context of resilient landscape management were evaluated: diversity of social learning approaches, stakeholders and social networks, the role of traditional knowledge in management, effectiveness of the existing institutions for landscape conservation and management and potential policy responses for building and strengthening the landscape resilience. The method of the study comprised: development of an ACM evaluation framework for the SEPLS, exploration of the potential indicators for assessing the resilience, data collection with the semi-structured interviews and data evaluation. The collected data were evaluated based on a 1–5 Likert scale. The result of the evaluation revealed that the current governance of the SEPLS is far from being successful. The average relative value of the key attributes of the resilience for the management of the SEPLS seems to change from moderate to a very low degree. However, it is argued that the mechanism of ACM can be built particularly based on collaboration and power sharing, among the key stakeholders operating at different levels. Finally, a set of policy-oriented responses were recommended to contribute to the resilient landscape management in the region. It is expected that the results of this study can help policy makers, resource and landscape planners to establish and strengthen the resilient landscape management in Lefke Region and elsewhere.