In the face of climate change, mitigation strategies are required that ensure sustainable use of natural resources while improving communities livelihood and development. We developed climate change mitigation scenarios engaging stakeholders at sub-national and national level within the framework of a national REDD+ pilot project in Tanzania . We developed a participatory framework to model land use and land cover change (LULCC) scenarios at local, regional and national scales, called KESHO. KESHO provides an approach for enhancing stakeholders engagement at all stages of scenario development, from narrative to quantitative and spatially explicit outputs. We then analysed tradeoffs of the 2 alternative scenarios in relation to carbon stocks, biodiversity, and water safeguards.