Salzau 2010 Abstracts February 2010
The human species, while partially buffered against environmental immediacies by culture and technology, is ultimately fully dependent on natural capital and on the flow of ecosystem services (ESs). Colloquially, ESs are "the benefits of nature to households, communities, and economies". This concept has gained currency because it conveys an important idea: that ecosystems are socially valuable in many ways beyond the direct exploitation of goods produced and harvested. The potential of ESs to unite the fields of ecology and economics, form the basis of a unified and enriched approach to environmental adaptive management, and foster clear public communication and participation on environmental issues.
The paper presents major results of an on-going research activity on social and ecological conflicts arising in ordinary management actions of the “Litorale di Ugento” NaturalRegionalPark (Province of Lecce, Italy). An objective scientific characterization of relevant provisioning, cultural and supporting services supplied by the landscape mosaic of the Park is presented based on the knowledge acquired during the last 8 years of monitoring program and survey projects. Target specific questionnaires were used to assess perceptions, needs and obligations of the four major stakeholder classes of the area (i.e., farmers, land management authorities, tourists and tourist related economic actors). Both pictures are then compared and enriched by a first assessment of the economic revenues and expenditure linked to ESs.
Results are discussed in the framework of environmental security pointing to relevant institutional, political and individualistic mismatches causing management conflicts and hindering adaptive strategies. It emerges that the development of effective management scenarios centers on the smooth integration of three pillars serving common objectives: science, political processes and local empowerment. We argue that the use of “civic science” in the implementation of adaptive management experiments of ESs at the local scale could be one of the best options of adaptive approaches to land management.