How are jobs and ecosystem services linked at the local scale?

Abstract

With the exception of subsistence economies, employment benefits along a value chain may represent a relevant, but also a generally neglected part of the wealth derived from nature. Our objective is twofold: i) to determine the extent to which ecosystem services (ES) supply at municipality scale relates to local employment in different regions and economic sub-sectors in Argentina; ii) to determine the multiplier effect of employment in the economic activities most dependent on natural capital (tourism, crop production, animal production, and fishery production), on the employment in the rest of the economy sub-sectors. Landscape capacity to supply ES was represented by land use-land cover (LULC) categories and their relationships with a general ES proxy. Employment information at the municipality level came from nation-wide census data (1600 municipalities). Generalized Additive Models of employment and landscape ES supply revealed that: a) relevant portions of local employment are explained by the landscape ES supply, b) the multiplier impact of tourism employment on the rest of employment was between 5 and 1.7 times higher than the impact of employment in crop production and animal production, and c) the overall multiplier impact of employment on these three activities varied between ecoregions, between 0.5 and 2.7.