Landscapes & Jurisdictions

Landscapes & Jurisdictions

Commodity production must happen in a way that minimizes risks to environmental and social values. It is no longer feasible to only focus on individual farms and plantations in isolation of the surrounding landscape and communities.

Sustainable Development Goal 15 – Life on Land

Protect, restore, and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.

600,000 Sq. Km

of landscapes and jurisdictions globally have been screened for HCVs.

7

countries have done HCV screenings.

22

districts are actively screening for HCVs.

To scale up the impact of the HCV Approach it was necessary to expand our focus from individual farms and plantations to the surrounding landscape and communiti

The HCV Screening methodology was developed by the HCV Network in 2019 in response to increasing demand and interest to scale up the use of the HCV Approach in landscapes and jurisdictions where there is commodity production and other developments. To scale up the impact of the HCV Approach it was necessary to expand our focus from individual farms and plantations to the surrounding landscape and communities.

HCV Screening:

  • Considers the likelihood that High Conservation Values (HCVs) are present.
  • Identifies possible threats to those HCVs.
  • Indicates which values are most urgent to attend to

It also offers benefits to a wide variety of stakeholders involved in jurisdictional and landscape sustainability initiatives including government technical organizations, NGOs, donors and investors, and multi-stakeholder platforms.

What can HCV Screening be used for?

Screening can support land-use planning. It supports governments, companies, and others to find out what HCVs may exist and how to set priorities to protect them, help plan and implement sustainable sourcing initiatives, identify priority areas for ecosystem restoration and prioritize targeted fieldwork and streamline follow-up assessments. The results of the screening can inform the revision of spatial plans or “Green Growth Initiatives” and help align government and company sustainability plans.

Civil society and non-governmental organizations can use HCV Screening results to influence government and industry. It can also be used by industry forums that want to align their objectives and implement land management and sustainability plans that are consistent with one another.

Participation in a screening exercise also enables a community to express concern about environmental issues and elicit action from land managers. It could also provide an opportunity to meaningfully connect local-level participatory mapping and land tenure status with higher-level land use planning.

Get support

The Secretariat actively engages in landscape and jurisdictional initiatives. It acts as a technical, independent advisor to link landscape or jurisdictional projects to global best practices and facilitates knowledge exchange.

The Secretariat provides advisory services related to:

  • Project planning and design
  • Coordination or support with project implementation
  • Interpretation of results and formulation of recommendations
  • Training on the HCV approach and HCV Screening
  • Guidance development
  • Quality assurance and feedback on screening outputs

For more information, please contact secretariat@hcvnetwork.org.

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Related Documents

Document Title

HCV Screening Brief

This is a 4-page overview to explain what HCV Screening is and how it is used in practice.

Document Type
Date of Publication

December 10, 2024

Country
Organisation

Landscapes & Jurisdictions
Document Title

HCV Screening Guide

HCV Screening: Guidance for identifying and prioritising action for HCVs in jurisdictional and landscape settings 

This document describes a methodology called High Conservation Value (HCV) screening. HCV screening is a desktop exercise that uses the six HCV definitions to characterize the environmental and social aspects of a landscape or jurisdiction. Screening considers: the likelihood that HCVs are present, identifies threats to those HCVs and indicates which values are most at risk. This guidance was first published in April 2019. In 2020 the guidance was updated to incorporate learning and experience from HCVN-coordinated screenings and inputs from other practitioners. HCV screening teams are the primary audience for the document, but it should also be informative for stakeholders involved in screening processes and for those involved in the wider project or initiative in which a screening is being conducted (e.g. government technical staff, NGOs, donors and investors).

Document Type
Date of Publication

December 30, 2021

Country
Organisation

Landscapes & Jurisdictions
Document Title

White Paper: HCV Screening for Sustainable Land Use

This white paper was produced as part of the HCV Network's session on HCV Screening for Sustainable Land Use: Prioritizing Conservation and Livelihoods in Production Landscapes at the Global Landscapes Forum (GLF) Climate Hybrid Conference on November 6, 2021.

Document Type
Date of Publication

December 30, 2021

Country
Organisation

Landscapes & Jurisdictions
Document Title

HCV Screening Course Leaflet

Learn about our self-paced online course: Introduction to HCV Screening

Document Type
Date of Publication

December 30, 2021

Country
Organisation

Landscapes & Jurisdictions

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