Rapid population growth, human-forced climate change and the quest of economic development is changing how governments and local communities view the landscapes they live in. In the past decade we have seen significant changes to ecosystems as they have been reshaped to meet the demands of a variety of stakeholders from subsistence farmers, to forestry and extractive industries. In allocating scarce conservation resources from funding sources like REDD+, stakeholders that include governments, local communities and large scale industrial developers have been challenged to deliver co-benefits for biodiversity conservation and sustainable livelihoods through the protection of ecosystem services. However it is not clear whether there are always win-wins for the environment and the development community. Using the Marxan decision support tool, we outline a scenario planning based approach to landscape analysis designed to allow different stakeholders to identify clear land-use objectives, explore trade-offs in achieving those objectives and promote thoughtful and informed land-use decisions. We discuss the experiences in applying the methodology in three East African landscapes.