Socio-cultural valuation of ecosystem services in a transhumance social-ecological network

Abstract The ecosystem services framework is receiving increasing attention in the fields of policy and research. The assessment of human attitudes and perceptions regarding ecosystem services has been proposed as a promising tool for addressing complex problems associated with environmental change, particularly in the context of cultural landscapes. Transhumance is not only a farming practice responsible for shaping cultural landscapes but also an adaptive strategy based on mobility that may represent a useful approach to overcoming the growing challenges posed by accelerated environmental change. A socio-cultural valuation of ecosystem services associated with the Conquense Drove Road, one of the major transhumant networks still in use in Mediterranean Spain, was conducted via the distribution of questionnaires to 416 local residents and visitors to capture their perceptions regarding the importance of 34 ecosystem services (10 provisioning, 12 regulating, and 12 cultural) for both social and personal well-being. Overall, the ecosystem services considered to be the most important for social well-being were fire prevention, air purification and livestock. Most of the ecosystem services in question were perceived as declining, with the exception of those associated with recreation, scientific knowledge and environmental education. This study revealed that perceptions regarding the value of ecosystem services differed among respondents, depending on their age, place of origin and gender. Several methodological issues, as well as the implications of socio-cultural valuation for policy making, are also discussed here.

[1]  J. Lassoie,et al.  Synthesis, part of a Special Feature on Resilience and Vulnerability of Arid and Semi-Arid Social Ecological Systems Vulnerability of Worldwide Pastoralism to Global Changes and Interdisciplinary Strategies for Sustainable Pastoralism , 2011 .

[2]  E. Pouta,et al.  Residents’ sense of place and landscape perceptions at the rural–urban interface , 2012 .

[3]  R. Costanza,et al.  Defining and classifying ecosystem services for decision making , 2009 .

[4]  A. Agrawal.  The role of local institutions in adaptation to climate change , 2008 .

[5]  D. Rocheleau,et al.  Feminist political ecology : global issues and local experiences , 1998 .

[6]  R. D. Groot,et al.  A typology for the classification, description and valuation of ecosystem functions, goods and services , 2002 .

[7]  J. Pereira,et al.  Mediterranean cork oak savannas require human use to sustain biodiversity and ecosystem services , 2011 .

[8]  B. Peco,et al.  Assessing the effects of seasonal grazing on holm oak regeneration: implications for the conservation of Mediterranean dehesas , 2013 .

[9]  S. Lavorel,et al.  The diversity of the ecosystem services concept and its implications for their assessment and management. , 2011, Comptes rendus biologies.

[10]  K. Richards,et al.  Environmental Science and Policy , 2015 .

[11]  Sally Brooks,et al.  Pastoralism: A critical asset for food security under global climate change , 2013 .

[12]  Berta Martín-López,et al.  Envisioning the future of transhumant pastoralism through participatory scenario planning: a case study in Spain , 2013 .

[13]  K. Chan,et al.  Rethinking ecosystem services to better address and navigate cultural values , 2012 .

[14]  B. Martín‐López,et al.  Exploring the knowledge landscape of ecosystem services assessments in Mediterranean agroecosystems: Insights for future research , 2014 .

[15]  R. D. Groot,et al.  The history of ecosystem services in economic theory and practice: From early notions to markets and payment schemes , 2010 .

[16]  Ruerd Ruben,et al.  Rural Diversity and heterogeneity in less-favoured areas: the quest for policy targeting , 2004 .

[17]  J. Gonzalez,et al.  Uncovering Ecosystem Service Bundles through Social Preferences , 2012, PloS one.

[18]  A. Power.  Ecosystem services and agriculture: tradeoffs and synergies , 2010, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[19]  G. Daily.  Nature's services: societal dependence on natural ecosystems. , 1998 .

[20]  R. L. Trosper,et al.  Emergence Unites Ecology and Society , 2005 .

[21]  H. Caraveli.  A comparative analysis on intensification and extensification in mediterranean agriculture: dilemmas for LFAs policy , 2000 .

[22]  Millenium Ecosystem Assessment.  Ecosystems and human well-being: synthesis , 2005 .

[23]  A. Cazorlaa,et al.  A multicriteria assessment model for evaluating droving route networks , 2008 .

[24]  Stephen Polasky,et al.  Uncertainty in ecosystem services valuation and implications for assessing land use tradeoffs: An agricultural case study in the Minnesota River Basin , 2012 .

[25]  HighWire Press.  Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London , 1781, The London Medical Journal.

[26]  Petteri Vihervaara,et al.  Trends in Ecosystem Service Research: Early Steps and Current Drivers , 2010, AMBIO.

[27]  C. Bacon,et al.  The Social Dimensions of Sustainability and Change in Diversified Farming Systems , 2012 .

[28]  T. D. Mitchell,et al.  Ecosystem Service Supply and Vulnerability to Global Change in Europe , 2005, Science.

[29]  S. Hamilton,et al.  Ecosystem services and agriculture: Cultivating agricultural ecosystems for diverse benefits , 2007 .

[30]  B. Martín‐López,et al.  Trade-offs across value-domains in ecosystem services assessment. , 2014 .

[31]  M. Fernández-Giménez,et al.  Pyrenean Pastoralists’ Ecological Knowledge: Documentation and Application to Natural Resource Management and Adaptation , 2012 .

[32]  Daniel Kahneman,et al.  Valuing public goods: The purchase of moral satisfaction , 1992 .

[33]  Jonathan Davies,et al.  Global Review of the Economics of Pastoralism , 2006 .

[34]  Myles Oelofse,et al.  An Indicator Framework for Assessing Agroecosystem Resilience , 2012 .

[35]  B. Lin.  Resilience in Agriculture through Crop Diversification: Adaptive Management for Environmental Change , 2011 .

[36]  G. Daily,et al.  The Ecosystem Services Framework and Natural Capital Conservation , 2008 .

[37]  B. Martín‐López,et al.  Social preferences regarding the delivery of ecosystem services in a semiarid Mediterranean region. , 2011 .

[38]  R. Mittermeier,et al.  Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities , 2000, Nature.

[39]  C. Görg,et al.  Benefits and limitations of the ecosystem services concept in environmental policy and decision making: Some stakeholder perspectives , 2013 .

[40]  K. Galvin.  Transitions: Pastoralists Living with Change , 2009 .

[41]  Pedro Martins da Silva,et al.  Identifying and prioritising services in European terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems , 2010, Biodiversity and Conservation.

[42]  F. Berkes,et al.  Adapting to Climate Change: Social-Ecological Resilience in a Canadian Western Arctic Community , 2002 .

[43]  Victoria Reyes-García,et al.  Research, part of a Special Feature on Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Adaptation to Global Environmental Change: North and South Perspectives Traditional ecological knowledge among transhumant pastoralists in Mediterranean Spain , 2013 .

[44]  Henrique M. Pereira,et al.  Ecosystem Services and Human Well-Being: a Participatory Study in a Mountain Community in Portugal , 2005 .

[45]  Harald Bugmann,et al.  Human impacts on fire occurrence: a case study of hundred years of forest fires in a dry alpine valley in Switzerland , 2012, Regional Environmental Change.

[46]  R. Cowling,et al.  An operational model for mainstreaming ecosystem services for implementation , 2008, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[47]  Hannah Wittman,et al.  Reworking the metabolic rift: La Vía Campesina, agrarian citizenship, and food sovereignty , 2009 .

[48]  J. Davies,et al.  The Economics of Mobile Pastoralism: A Global Summary , 2007 .

[49]  Malin Falkenmark,et al.  Managing water in agriculture for food production and other ecosystem services , 2010 .

[50]  Rocco Scolozzi,et al.  Exploring Panarchy in Alpine Grasslands: an Application of Adaptive Cycle Concepts to the Conservation of a Cultural Landscape , 2012 .

[51]  P. Verburg,et al.  Spatial quantification and valuation of cultural ecosystem services in an agricultural landscape , 2014 .

[52]  B. Martín‐López,et al.  Resilience and the Cultural Landscape: Ecosystem services and social–ecological resilience in transhumance cultural landscapes: learning from the past, looking for a future , 2012 .

[53]  M. Fernández-Giménez,et al.  Tools for Resilience Management: Multidisciplinary Development of State-and-Transition Models for Northwest Colorado , 2013 .

[54]  F. D. Pineda,et al.  A review of the role of drove roads (cañadas) as an ecological corridors , 2006 .

[55]  S. Harrop.  Traditional agricultural landscapes as protected areas in international law and policy , 2007 .

[56]  M. Sagoff.  Aggregation and deliberation in valuing environmental public goods:: A look beyond contingent pricing , 1998 .

[57]  M. Ruiz,et al.  Ecological history of transhumance in Spain , 1986 .

[58]  Javier Liberal.  Fernando José Burgaz: Director General de la Industria Alimentaria del Ministerio de Agricultura, Alimentación y Medio Ambiente (Magrama) , 2013 .

[59]  J. Anderies,et al.  Insight, part of a Special Feature on Exploring Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems Toward a Network Perspective of the Study of Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems , 2006 .

[60]  B. Martín‐López,et al.  The role of multi-functionality in social preferences toward semi-arid rural landscapes: An ecosystem service approach , 2012 .

[61]  I. Bateman.  Economic valuation with stated preference techniques : a manual : department for transport , 2002 .

[62]  Sylvie Ladet,et al.  Agricultural land-use change and its drivers in mountain landscapes: A case study in the Pyrenees , 2006 .

[63]  Damon M. Hall,et al.  Obscuring Ecosystem Function with Application of the Ecosystem Services Concept , 2010, Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology.

[64]  I. Disposiciones Generales,et al.  MINISTERIO DE AGRICULTURA, ALIMENTACIÓN Y MEDIO AMBIENTE , 2013 .

[65]  P. Stern,et al.  Gender, values, and environmentalism , 2002 .

[66]  Claudia Bieling,et al.  Research, part of a Special Feature on Sustaining Ecosystem Services in Cultural Landscapes: Analysis and Management Options Exploring Futures of Ecosystem Services in Cultural Landscapes through Participatory Scenario Development in the Swabian Alb, Germany , 2013 .

[67]  J. Blondel.  The ‘Design’ of Mediterranean Landscapes: A Millennial Story of Humans and Ecological Systems during the Historic Period , 2006 .

[68]  Arild Vatn,et al.  Rationality, institutions and environmental policy , 2005 .

[69]  C. Dormann,et al.  A quantitative review of ecosystem service studies: approaches, shortcomings and the road ahead , 2011 .

[70]  Berta Martín-López,et al.  Research, part of a Special Feature on Sustaining Ecosystem Services in Cultural Landscapes: Analysis and Management Options Using visual stimuli to explore the social perceptions of ecosystem services in cultural landscapes: the case of transhumance in Mediterranean Spain , 2014 .

[71]  Scott M. Swinton,et al.  Reconciling agricultural productivity and environmental integrity: A grand challenge for agriculture , 2005 .

[72]  John M. Anderies,et al.  Toward a network perspective of the study of resilience in social-ecological systems , 2006 .

[73]  Simo Sarkki,et al.  Users or producers of ecosystem services? A scenario exercise for integrating conservation and reindeer herding in northeast Finland , 2012, Pastoralism: Research, Policy and Practice.

[74]  V. Reyes‐García,et al.  Gendered Homegardens: A Study in Three Mountain Areas of the Iberian Peninsula , 2010, Economic Botany.

[75]  Rachelle K. Gould,et al.  Where are Cultural and Social in Ecosystem Services? A Framework for Constructive Engagement , 2012 .

[76]  B. Martín‐López,et al.  Evaluating Ecosystem Services in Transhumance Cultural Landscapes An Interdisciplinary and Participatory Framework , 2012 .

[77]  T. Ricketts,et al.  Ecosystem services and dis-services to agriculture , 2007 .

[78]  S. Lavorel,et al.  Stakeholder perceptions of grassland ecosystem services in relation to knowledge on soil fertility and biodiversity , 2011 .

[79]  R. D. Groot,et al.  Challenges in integrating the concept of ecosystem services and values in landscape planning, management and decision making , 2010 .