Beautiful agricultural landscapes promote cultural ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation

AbstractEcosystem services related to biodiversity, including cultural services, are essential for agricultural production such as viticulture. In agricultural landscapes, pesticides and mechanization threaten biodiversity, lead to landscape simplification and may reduce ecosystem services. On the other hand, consumers are more and more aware of environmental issues in food production. We investigated if landscape complexity, including soil management practices, was (i) appreciated by visitors and (ii) presented by winegrowers and tourism professionals in the French vineyards with the designation of geographical origin (DGO) ‘Coteaux du Layon’. Our goal was to determine if landscape complexity provides cultural ecosystem services such as aesthetics beneficial for the wine trade and the DGO region's attractiveness. We analyzed the iconographic content and the composition of landscape photographs on 50 websites to investigate if local winegrowers and tourism professionals associate biodiversity in the landscape and soil management practices with wine promotion. A questionnaire was realized to study the perception of local landscapes by interviewing 192 visitors of the region. The benefits of landscape complexity and soil management practices favoring biodiversity in viticulture were known and appreciated by many visitors, even if photographs of wine and traditional practices appeared to encourage wine purchasing. Local winegrowers’ representation of the DGO region only partially served these preferences; instead they mainly presented the wine-growing region by photographs focusing on wine bottles and vineyards. Consumer's preferences showed that complex landscapes could provide cultural ecosystem services that winegrowers are still less aware of. Therefore, complexity-targeted landscape planning including vegetation cover in soil management should be included in policy recommendations as agroecological measures for sustainable DGO production.

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Reconciling biodiversity conservation, food production and farmers’ demand

10.1101/485607 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Daniel Montoya ◽

Sabrina Gaba ◽

Claire de Mazancourt ◽

Vincent Bretagnolle ◽

Michel Loreau

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Global Change ◽

Biodiversity Conservation ◽

Food Production ◽

Crop Production ◽

Natural Habitat ◽

Agricultural Landscapes ◽

Demographic Stochasticity ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Intensively Managed

AbstractAgricultural management should consider multiple services and stakeholders. Yet, it remains unclear how to guarantee the provision of ecosystem services that reaches stakeholders’ demands, especially considering the observed biodiversity decline and the current global change predictions that may affect food security. Here, we use a model to examine how landscape composition – fraction of semi-natural habitat (SNH) – affects biodiversity and crop production services in intensively-managed agricultural systems. We analyse three groups of stakeholders assumed to value different ecosystem services most – individual farmers (crop yield per area), agricultural unions (landscape production) and conservationists (biodiversity). We find that trade-offs among stakeholders’ demands strongly depend on the degree of pollination dependence of crops, the strength of environmental and demographic stochasticity, and the relative amount of an ecosystem service demanded by each stakeholder, i.e. function thresholds. Intermediate amounts of SNH can allow for the delivery of relatively high levels of the three ecosystem services. Our analysis further suggests that the current levels of SNH protection lie below these intermediate amounts of SNH in intensively-managed agricultural landscapes. Given the worldwide trends in agriculture and global change, these results suggest ways of managing landscapes to reconcile the demands of several actors and ensure for biodiversity conservation and food production.

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Motivations for conservation action in peopled landscapes

Pacific Conservation Biology ◽

10.1071/pc18010 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 24 (4) ◽

pp. 341 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

D. F. Shanahan ◽

J. E. Ledington ◽

F. J. F. Maseyk

Keyword(s):

New Zealand ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Biodiversity Conservation ◽

Pacific Islands ◽

Well Being ◽

Urban Landscapes ◽

Bird Conservation ◽

Cultural Ecosystem Services ◽

Conservation Action ◽

Community Effort

Urbanisation can drive wholesale change of ecosystems, and so biodiversity conservation action in these landscapes must overcome significant challenges. Despite this, councils and city residents invest significant resources into managing and promoting biodiversity in cities, often independently from wider-scale conservation objectives. In this paper we first examine biodiversity strategies from cities (Australia and New Zealand) and countries (Pacific Islands) to identify key ‘motivations’ for conservation action in peopled landscapes – this information is critical to guide how conservation planners can leverage effort in these spaces for broader conservation gain. We found that enhancing human well-being is a key motivator for biodiversity conservation in peopled landscapes; for example, 100% of strategies identified cultural ecosystem services as a key motivator. This trend reflects the importance of biodiversity in cities for people. This study raises a crucial question: what conservation outcomes might be possible from conservation action in cities where the key desired outcome is for people? We use two case studies to examine this question (threatened plant and threatened bird conservation in New Zealand cities), showing that conservation action in cities can deliver significant benefits that contribute to broader conservation objectives. We conclude that these benefits arise for several reasons: urban landscapes can leverage considerable people-power, the highly disturbed landscape can provide significant advantages for conservation action for some species, and enabling people to connect with nature and carry out conservation action can galvanise community effort for even greater conservation gain. If conservation planners can identify ways to leverage this effort for broader outcomes the results can be exceptional.

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The Importance of Cultural Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity for Landscape Visitors in the Biosphere Reserve Swabian Alb (Germany)

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su11092650 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (9) ◽

pp. 2650 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Sarah Marie Müller ◽

Jasmin Peisker ◽

Claudia Bieling ◽

Kathrin Linnemann ◽

Konrad Reidl ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Cultural Landscapes ◽

Current Trend ◽

Landscape Management ◽

Biosphere Reserve ◽

Agricultural Landscapes ◽

Cultural Ecosystem Services ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Local Decision ◽

Swabian Alb

Agricultural landscapes play an important role in providing different ecosystem services. However, the current trend of land use intensification in Central Europe involves the risk of trade-offs between them. Since cultural ecosystem services (CES) are less tangible, they are often underrepresented in landscape management decisions. To highlight this subject we evaluated CES in agro-ecosystems in the biosphere reserve Swabian Alb (Southwestern Germany). We conducted a survey among visitors to investigate their usage of the landscape, their perception as well as valuation of CES, and interrelations with biodiversity. The results show the presence of various types of usage related to cultural services, the most prominent being recreation and landscape aesthetics. People declared a high affinity to nature and biodiversity awareness. A participatory mapping task revealed their appreciation of biodiverse and ecologically relevant places such as protected species-rich grasslands, traditional orchards and hedgerows. Several socio-demographic differences emerged, e.g., between age classes and local/non-local visitors. We conclude that our exemplary methodical approach was successful in capturing the CES and their link to biodiversity in the investigated biosphere reserve, while identifying priority fields of action concerning the integration of CES into management and planning of cultural landscapes, ultimately serving as guides for local decision-makers.

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