Abstract
While a landscape usually provides a wide range of benefits, the ecological and spatial entanglement of the processes behind ecosystem services does not allow maximizing benefits from all services at the same time. Different stakeholders relying on different services might therefore prefer different policies and management for the wider area where they operate. Trade-offs, disagreements and mutual interests are rooted in ecological processes but are manifested in the social sphere. Social networks were shown to have a significant impact on the management of ecosystem services. In this paper we show that ecosystem services also influence the structure of management-networks and power-relations among stakeholders, thus ecological factors set the stage for (local-regional) political discourse. We used social network analysis (SNA) to show how ecological processes become agents of social-ecological systems (SES), this method is also useful for finding those players who can adopt a mediator role in the social sphere, having a special position in the web of competing interests. Our research shows how mutual influence between social and ecological elements shapes management strategies in five protected areas in Central and Eastern Europe. The most voluminous and profitable ecosystem services (primarily timber production in our cases) define which stakeholders are the most powerful in management networks—this eminent position allows these players to make decisions unilaterally. Other, smaller players tend to negotiate with a diverse set of counterparts with whom they share and co-manage often multiple services. Power relations that emerge as a consequence of production differences among ecosystem services often do not allow participatory management methods. These situations lead to over-utilization of natural resources with a narrow interpretation of sustainability which decreases resilience for the whole social-ecological system. Our results contribute to the theoretical understanding of political discourses in SES and showcase how SNA can be applied as a tool to facilitate participatory landscape-management. We show how ecological factors co-create the social sphere where decisions are made about sustainable land-use.
Highlights
Protected areas are increasingly studied and managed as socialecological systems (SES) where people and ecological systems form complex interactions instead of the traditional view of nature and society being separated (Westley et al, 2002; Ostrom, 2009; Levin et al, 2013)
The analysis was organized into a three-step process, similar to the structure recommended by Alexander et al (2016): (1) creating a database of all possible stakeholders who use the landscape in question or who are interacting with the park management, (2) map power relations among stakeholders, and (3) collect and analyze social network data to inform stakeholder involvement for participatory work
Our study showed that social network analysis (SNA) is a feasible and useful tool in non-academic professional environment with limited expert support
Summary
Protected areas are increasingly studied and managed as socialecological systems (SES) where people and ecological systems form complex interactions instead of the traditional view of nature and society being separated (Westley et al, 2002; Ostrom, 2009; Levin et al, 2013). Use certain tools and resources together, they usually share knowledge about the resource system—they form a social network Central agents in such informal networks may play an important role in shaping public opinion on the state of the ecosystem and the need to change strategies for more sustainable methodologies (Crona and Bodin, 2010). Such informal ties among stakeholders can have a stronger effect on their views than their categorical attributes such as profession (Prell et al, 2010). That the structure of a social network sets limits to the desired management options and offers intervention points that might facilitate the transformation of a governance network into a more flexible, participative web of actors where learning, cooperation and dealing with uncertainty are accepted parts of management (Crona and Hubacek, 2010; Schröter et al, 2018)
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