Investigating the potential impact of ecological restoration strategies on people–landscape interactions through cultural ecosystem services: A case study of Xilin Gol, China

Abstract

Although cultural ecosystem services (CES) are greatly valued by diverse stakeholders, the full range of CES provided by a landscape is notoriously difficult to estimate. The resulting lack of objective norms for CES may lead to the loss of the multiple non-material factors that contribute to how a landscape is valued and experienced. This is especially true under ecological restoration, which could sharply change how people experience landscapes. Therefore, our aim in this study was to identify and analyze the CES that arise from people's interaction with their landscape, focusing specifically on the influences of different ecological restoration strategies. We carried out semi-structured interviews with the residents of villages in the Xilin Gol League, Inner Mongolia, China. Regarding the implementation of ecological restoration measures, the people living in typical pastoral zones would be most affected by these measures because their main livelihood (animal husbandry) depends strongly on grasslands. Our results demonstrated that human perception of the CES provided by landscapes is affected not only by the factors related to an individual's cultural worldview (e.g., ethnicity, age, education) but also by the utility of landscape features, which are reflected in the individual's landscape dependence (occupation). Our research provides a cultural perspective for aspects of local well-being in addition to ecological and economic targets. Understanding these other aspects is critical for implementing sustainable ecological restoration.