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A social-ecological lens and tool for exploring ecosystem services

– experiences

from MAB reserves

Maria Tengö, Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University

Ecosystem services as generated by social-ecological systems

• All ecosystems are shaped by human activities

• That people’s perceptions, preferences, and access to ecosystem services influence their existence.

- it is not an ecosystem services unless someone perceives a benefits from it!

Management strategies needs to be based on understanding of human-ecosystem interactions in social-ecological systems

Ecosystem services for engaging people

Many conservation values in cultural landscapes result from a long history of human use and management

Work on ecosystem services can help strengthening local values such as sense of ownership, traditional knowledge, cultural values and social participation.

(report EuroMAB workshop on eco-

system services July 2011)

Who?

Social-ecological Inventories: An Approach for Finding Key Actors (and engaging them)

Lisen Schultz Post Doctoral Researcher, Stockholm Resilience Centre

Ryan Plummer

Professor and Chancellor’s Chair in Research Excellence, Brock University Director, Brock Environmental Sustainability Research Unit Senior Research Fellow, Stockholm Resilience Centre

Social-ecological inventories

http://www.stockholmresilience.org/seminarandevents/whiteboardseminars/analysingsocialecologicalinventories.5.1f74f76413071d337c380004441.html

How does it work?

• Kristianstads Vattenrike: to identify local stewards of the landscape and ecosystem services

Kristianstads Vattenrike

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Contributions of local stewards

• On-site management

– Landscape

– Habitat

– Species

– Individual animals

• Monitoring and response

– Inventories

– Long-term

– Detailed

– Early alarms

Contributions (continued)

• Local ecological knowledge – Place-specific – Scientific AND experiential – Continuously evolving

• Public support for ecosystem management

– Among themselves – Among the public

• Specialized networks – Collaboration between groups – National and international contacts – Members

Motives for engagement

• Sense-of-place

• Joy of learning

• Joy of contributing to something meaningful

• Social function – we have fun together

• Need to have costs covered, but do not expect to earn money

Usefulness of social-ecological inventories

Management of BR:

• Understanding stewardship!

• Connectedness btw people and nature

• Improved accuracy and legitimacy of practices and policies

• Trust-building, social capital, social learning

• Building strategic partnerships and networks

For local stewards

• Acknowledgement and respect

• Connect to power, resources and knowledge at other scales

• Power sharing

• Capacity-building

• Opportunities for collaboration and networking

But...

• Local groups may have narrow focus • Builds on volunteer efforts • Lacks mandate, power and resources • No substitute – but a crucial complement • Need a bridging organization (e.g. a biosphere) to

make a difference at the landscape level

SEI • Sensitive to the views of the initiator (what is the

issue, what is an important activity with regards to this issue, what is valuable knowledge)

• Misses negative impacts • Mostly local

Conclusions • Local stewards are important but often overlooked

actors in management of ecosystem services

• Their efforts can be enhanced by bridging organizations who recognize their competence and their motives

• Social-ecological inventories provide a trust-building complement to stakeholder analyses and biological inventories

• As such, they provide a starting point for adaptive co-management of social-ecological systems, aiming at a sustainable generation of ecosystem services

Perspectives - Madagascar

Social processes that underpin generation of key ecosystem services.

Shared norms and rule enforcement

Lack of data

Snowballing and interviews

Mont St Hilaire

- Emphazising positive connections between people and nature

- Mobilizing and creating pride:

- Remarkable trees

- Stewardship agreements

- Festivals

The role of cultural ecosystem services

• Emphasizing the cultural ecosystem services: recreation, spiritual values, sense of place, pride

• Not very easy to measure, but key for engagement

Exercise 3: Social-ecological inventories

Revisit key ecosystem services from your BRs • Which are strongly influenced by human activities?

Pick one or two that are relevant to several people in the group.

Questions to guide your discussion: • Which actors (people or groups) matter for the

generation of ecosystem services? • What are their main activities? • Which knowledge could they contribute? • What values motivates people? Reporting back: - Which services did you select and why? - What are ongoing collaborations with actors and gaps

in collaboration?

• Report back:

– The service you picked

– Similarities and differences in actors, activities and values?

– Surprising insights?

EuroMAB ES Workshop 2012

• Focusing on ecosystems services can help in fostering sustainable economic activities. Examples mentioned included ecotourism, the generation of non-wood forest products, and organic farming, which are activities that may both use and contribute to ecosystem services.

• • Ecosystem services are useful in educational activities. Experiences

shared focused on workshops and other activities targeted to parents, children and parents.

• • Work on ecosystem services can help strengthening local values such as

sense of ownership, traditional knowledge, cultural values and social participation.

• • Ecosystem services benefit from co-management approaches, building

on participation of local communities and implementing traditional management knowledge.

• • Focusing on ecosystem services can help illuminate trade-offs. There

are often conflicts arising from tradeoffs between different ecosystem services and competing values between different groups. Focusing on ecosystem services can help identify what these conflicts, values and tradeoffs are, and enable better-informed decisions.