Managing multiple interests in landscape and land use management is an element critical to sustainable economic and social development. Structuring and visualizing conflicting interests in a such a way as to drive the constructive engagement of multiple stakeholders is, however, a difficult task. With the aim of addressing this challenge, an initial concept on how to benchmark different landscape management models based on their ability to minimize trade-offs was presented in 2020 at the Swiss Landscape Congress, using the UNESCO Biosphere Entlebuch (UBE) as case example. During 2021–2022 the author further developed the methodology and framework to assess trade-offs, updating and complementing the UBE characterization with new data and insights. This paper describes the results and conclusions of this deep dive work.
The UBE exercise indicated that since its creation there has been a simultaneous improvement of various social, economic and environmental aspects at the biosphere region, with a visible minimization of trade-offs and a fair distribution of the value created. It remains open how many of these positive developments can exclusively be attributed to the UBE model. Comparisons with similar areas are therefore key to allowing a better interpretation of mechanisms and achievements and this paper is an invitation to other parks to participate in a similar exercise.