Abstract
ContextMost protected areas are managed based on objectives related to scientific ecological knowledge of species and ecosystems. However, a core principle of sustainability science is that understanding and including local ecological knowledge, perceptions of ecosystem service provision and landscape vulnerability will improve sustainability and resilience of social-ecological systems. Here, we take up these assumptions in the context of protected areas to provide insight on the effectiveness of nature protection goals, particularly in highly human-influenced landscapes.ObjectivesWe examined how residents’ ecological knowledge systems, comprised of both local and scientific, mediated the relationship between their characteristics and a set of variables that represented perceptions of ecosystem services, landscape change, human-nature relationships, and impacts.MethodsWe administered a face-to-face survey to local residents in the Sierra de Guadarrama protected areas, Spain. We used bi- and multi-variate analysis, including partial least squares path modeling to test our hypotheses.ResultsEcological knowledge systems were highly correlated and were instrumental in predicting perceptions of water-related ecosystem services, landscape change, increasing outdoors activities, and human-nature relationships. Engagement with nature, socio-demographics, trip characteristics, and a rural–urban gradient explained a high degree of variation in ecological knowledge. Bundles of perceived ecosystem services and impacts, in relation to ecological knowledge, emerged as social representation on how residents relate to, understand, and perceive landscapes.ConclusionsOur findings provide insight into the interactions between ecological knowledge systems and their role in shaping perceptions of local communities about protected areas. These results are expected to inform protected area management and landscape sustainability.
Highlights
Protected area (PA) networks are the most recognized and accepted strategy for conserving biodiversity in the face of global land use change, yet capacity for long term protection of Landscape Ecol (2020) 35:2549–2567 wide-ranging ecosystem services (ES) is increasingly uncertain (Xu et al 2017)
To assess the potential influence of a sample biased toward highly-educated respondents for the distributions of scientific ecological knowledge (SEK) and local ecological knowledge (LEK) scales, we run a test of normality with an aleatory sub-sample containing a significant lower number of respondents who stated to have a high-education degree (50% less, 43 Respondents, n = 118)
These results show the same pattern for SEK (i.e. KS test statistic = 0.051; p = 0.20; M = 1.34, SD = 0.54) and LEK (i.e. KS test statistic = 0.130; p \ 0.01; M = 0.83; SD = 0.59) (Table 6 in SM)
Summary
Protected area (PA) networks are the most recognized and accepted strategy for conserving biodiversity in the face of global land use change (e.g. ecosystem fragmentation and agricultural intensification; Gray et al 2016), yet capacity for long term protection of Landscape Ecol (2020) 35:2549–2567 wide-ranging ecosystem services (ES) is increasingly uncertain (Xu et al 2017). Protection and enhancement of ecosystems and biodiversity have been central goals of nature protection in PAs during past decades, it has increasingly been acknowledged that successful protection and management might be partly related to understanding the multiple ways in which humans value, relate to, and perceive benefits of and threats to ecosystems (e.g. perceptions of ES supply or nature contributions to people; Palomo et al 2014; Bennett 2016; Dıaz et al 2018). The way local communities perceive their landscapes and the management practices can directly affect processes of legitimacy for conservation governance or social acceptance (Bennett 2016). Assessing human knowledge about natural processes and biocultural diversity is instrumental for designing conservation strategies for PAs that are understood, legitimized, and accepted by local residents or stakeholders Assessing human knowledge about natural processes and biocultural diversity is instrumental for designing conservation strategies for PAs that are understood, legitimized, and accepted by local residents or stakeholders (Mace 2014; Tengoet al. 2017; Dıaz et al 2019)
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