Marie Stenseke

Assessing nature’s contributions to people

Recognizing culture, and diverse sources of knowledge, can improve assessments A major challenge today and into the future is to maintain or enhance beneficial contributions of nature to a good quality of life for all people. This is among the key motivations of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), a joint global effort by governments, academia, and civil society to assess and promote knowledge of Earths biodiversity and ecosystems and their contribution to human societies in order to inform policy formulation. One of the more recent key elements of the IPBES conceptual framework (1) is the notion of natures contributions to people (NCP), which builds on the ecosystem service concept popularized by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) (2). But as we detail below, NCP as defined and put into practice in IPBES differs from earlier work in several important ways. First, the NCP approach recognizes the central and pervasive role that culture plays in defining all links between people and nature. Second, use of NCP elevates, emphasizes, and operationalizes the role of indigenous and local knowledge in understanding natures contribution to people.

Ecosystem services and landscape management: three challenges and one plea

This article identifies three interrelated challenges concerning the ecosystem services (ES) framework and the nature of landscape dynamics within the context of landscape management. These challenges are set within a problematic externalization of nature inherent in the ES framework. The first challenge concerns the lack of compatibility between the ES framework and the logics of landscapes. The second challenge addresses the complexity of ecosystems, unsubstitutable values, and intangible dimensions in economic valuation when applied to landscapes. The third challenge points at how the ES framework has problems in accounting for how and why sociocultural processes are crucial to environmental attitudes and behavior. We argue that the idea of landscape and its inherent landscape dynamics, a crosscutting dimension of these challenges, is a missed opportunity for the ES framework in order to take immeasurable and context-specific social and cultural processes more seriously and consequently deliver sounder advice on landscape management. We thus make a plea for the importance of creating platforms for dialogue across research communities working to improve the understanding of human–nature dynamics.

Investigating biodiversity trajectories using scenarios – Lessons from two contrasting agricultural landscapes

Agriculture is the major land use at a global scale. In addition to food production, multifunctionality of landscapes, including values and ecosystem services like biodiversity, recreation and culture, is now focus for management. This study explores how a scenario approach, involving different stakeholders, may help to improve landscape management for biodiversity conservation. Local farmers and executives at the County Administrative Board were invited to discuss rural development and conditions for farmland biodiversity in two Swedish landscapes. The potential biodiversity for three future land use scenarios for the two landscapes was discussed: nature conservation, outdoor recreation and energy production, and compared with current and historical landscapes in each region. Analyses of habitat areas, connectedness and landscape diversity suggested that the energy and recreation scenarios had a negative impact on farmland biodiversity, whereas the nature conservation scenario, the current and historically reconstructed landscapes had a higher potential for biodiversity. The farmers appreciated the nature conservation scenario, but also the energy production scenario and they highlighted the need of increased subsidies for management of biodiversity. The farmers in the high production area were less interested in nature quality per se. The executives had similar opinions as the farmers, but disagreed on the advantages with energy production, as this would be in conflict with the high biodiversity and recreational values. The local physical and socio-economical conditions differ between landscapes and potentially shaped the stakeholders emotional attachment to the local environment, their opinions and decisions on how to manage the land. We stress the importance of incorporating local knowledge, visions and regional prerequisites for different land uses in conservation, since site and landscape specific planning for biodiversity together with a flexible subsidy system are necessary to reach the conservation goals within EU.

The Issue of Public Participation in the European Landscape Convention

The chapter introduces the European Landscape Convention (ELC) and its innovative features compared to earlier approaches to landscape. The Convention provides a new definition of landscape. It applies to all landscapes, not just selected ones, and underlines the diversity of landscapes as a value. It emphasizes that landscape is not an exclusive field for scientific and technical specialists but the concern of everybody, and advocates an enhanced role for public participation in landscape issues. Further, it highlights the principle of subsidiarity, requiring that Open image in new window landscape matters should be dealt with as closely to the affected population as possible. Next, the chapter provides a brief discussion of landscape concepts. Three prevailing notions of landscape are presented – landscape as morphology, landscape as scenery, and landscape as polity – and then the ELC’s definition of landscape as an ‘area as perceived by people’. Following this, the chapter discusses the diversity of landscapes as an important common value. Respect for and promotion of cultural diversity is part of the Council of Europe’s objective of promoting a democratic culture based on respect for law while actively involving civil society and citizens. Participation as provided for by the Aarhus Convention and followed up by the European Landscape Convention is then presented, followed by a discussion of the provisions in the ELC for implementation. The chapter concludes with a section on the ELC and participation in practice, briefly introducing the individual chapters of the book.

Integrated landscape management and the complicating issue of temporality

Abstract Landscape has become widely accepted as a concept for embracing the natural sphere as well as human society. There are, however, challenges in implementing the somewhat overarching rhetoric. This article takes a conceptual and deconstructive approach and elucidates complications in integrated landscape management, with a certain focus on landscape and time. Cases from some European areas, where integrative planning instruments are applied, serve as examples. The drawing of borders and the categorisation of areas are central aspects in understanding what constitutes integration, implying that negotiations and the weighing of different values are vital elements in integrated landscape management. Landscape management is inevitably an activity in the present, which is why landscape management needs to be based on good knowledge about the present conditions. In order to retain landscape qualities it is necessary to continuously reveal contemporary processes and reconsider and elaborate on functions and contexts that connect humans and their physical environment.

The Human Factor in Biodiversity

Landscape management and planning have become significant factors in post-productive rural areas. Through landscape policies, certain ideas about the fashion of the rural landscape are promoted. Policy-making, explicitly concerning the structures and qualities of the agricultural landscape in Sweden, was first initiated in the 1970s as a response to the ongoing abandonment of agricultural land and the degrading of biological values. Ecology and biodiversity developed as major concepts in the 1980s within rural landscape management, thus the planning of agricultural landscapes is very much the domain of the natural sciences (cf. Luz 2000). Agricultural landscapes, however, are not just a question of species, soils, water and climate, but also of culture, being inhabited by people and with a future dependent on human decisions and human activities. Moreover, landscapes vary as do the local and regional contexts, of which the physical features are integrated parts. With common agricultural and rural policies for a large part of Europe, there is an obvious risk that local and regional characteristics will be harmed by such general policies. Thus, landscape planning cannot only take physical facts as a point of departure, but must also deal with the human factor (Pretty 1998; cf. Van den Berg 2000; Bridgewater 2002). There is hence a need to find ways to integrate people and socio-economic aspects within landscape planning (cf. Fry 2001). That is the aim of this chapter.

The role, importance and challenges of social sciences and humanities in the work of the intergovernmental science-policy platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services (IPBES)

Qualified competences in social science and humanities are required across the various deliverables of the intergovernmental science-policy platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services (IPBES) in order to fully address the objectives of IPBES. Building integrative approaches has long been acknowledged as a scientific challenge. Hence, new paths have to be forged, including revisiting basic ontological and epistemological considerations, such as how we understand the world, what knowledge is, and the role of science. Constructive interdisciplinary dialogues in IPBES supports the development of innovative frames and terminologies. One example is the evolution from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment ecosystem service framework to the Nature’s Contributions to People classification now applied in IPBES assessments. IPBES is still in a learning phase and critical examination of what is accomplished this far is useful when refining ongoing modes of work and in long-term strategic considerations.

Resilience and the Cultural Landscape: System or arena? Conceptual concerns around the analysis of landscape dynamics

Introduction An important challenge in the quest for sustainable development is to understand and manage changes in the physical landscape. It is widely acknowledged that this has to be achieved within a multidimensional framework where human well-being, species, biodiversity and many other values are recognised (MA, 2005). In order to enhance social and ecological responsible governing, analytical tools are needed that can identify potentially problematic trends as well as contribute to the formulation of effective management strategies. In this context the importance of national and global perspectives is indisputable – but not sufficient. If one includes material and immaterial features and processes, and considers the unique constellations of these at different sites, strategies for sustainable development must, by necessity, reflect local variation. This is even more apparent as drivers of land use change operate at various spatial, temporal and institutional scales, and also with their influence differing depending on local socioeconomic and biophysical characteristics (further developed by Burgi et al ., Chapter 7; Eiter & Potthoff, 2007). Therefore, the success of managing change will, to a large extent, depend on considerations made by local authorities in their comprehensive planning for specific areas, as expressed in the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. This calls for a qualified understanding of the integrated relationship between social and ecological aspects also from a more narrow scale perspective. ‘Social–ecological systems’ is a concept used to frame an integrated perspective that links human society and nature commonly applied within resilience thinking (or resilience theory). Although it has become widely used since its introduction in the 1990s, the concept is still considered to be in an exploratory phase, where one of the key challenges is to come to grips with complexity (Cumming, 2011; Ostrom, 2009). The concept departs from an explicit system approach, where concepts are characteristically generated mainly from theory, and interrelationships are based on extrapolations and generalisations, rather than on vicinity and physical affinity (Tornqvist, 1981). However, studies employing the concept of social–ecological systems often relate to specific case studies, that is, investigations of specific areas of a limited size (Berkes & Folke, 1998; Berkes et al ., 2003), and the concept thereby assumes a spatial definition. In this way, social–ecological systems show apparent overlaps with conceptualisations of landscape, most notably with the spatial landscape perspective within geography (Olwig, 2007).

Conclusion: Benefits, Difficulties, and Challenges of Participation Under the European Landscape Convention

The ambition of this volume has been to evaluate and discuss the state of public participation in landscape issues a decade after the establishment of the European Landscape Convention. This concluding chapter summarizes the insights from various countries and discusses vital issues for future landscape research. While the merits of the ELC and public participation are acknowledged in the Open image in new window cases presented, a number of weaknesses and difficulties are also recognized. The main challenges to participation identified include public indifference, political and administrative power structures, scepticism regarding participatory approaches in government quarters, diverging perspectives between experts and stakeholders, and how to ensure democratic involvement. Positive lessons and cases of good practice show, nonetheless, that there are democratic gains to be made from participation. Methods may vary in detail, but techniques to ensure effective two-way communication are essential. The spectrum of participatory methods and communicative concepts examined indicates a need for mediation and arbitration. This is particularly so as the number of conflicts over the role of participation in environmental and landscape issues is likely to increase as the participatory approach spreads. Finally the chapter discusses the ELC in relation to European Union (EU) Directives, the future role of science in participatory approaches, and new issues emerging. There is a need for further knowledge concerning landscape perceptions, the interface between the ELC and other societal goals concerning landscape and land use, and policy strategy discourses. Since participatory approaches challenge the role of experts, questions are raised about how this field is to be researched. New questions also arise regarding options for participation in the face of contemporary trends and issues such as tourism, climatic change, biodiversity loss, and multiculturalism.

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services and the challenge of integrating social sciences and humanities

Abstract For the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), established in 2012, under the auspices of four United Nations entities (FAO, UNDP, UNEP and UNESCO), there is an urgent need to engage scholars in social sciences and humanities in assessing the state of the planet’s biodiversity. This article addresses the fundaments for involving scientists from these fields of science in IPBES, and reflects on the existing barriers. It builds on previous research on IPBES from various perspectives, as well as on the author’s insights from work in the organization. A fundamental condition recognized is that there needs to be a qualified understanding of what it means to integrate natural sciences and social sciences/humanities, and also that the latter have to be accepted on their own terms. Other barriers are related to the contextualisation of biodiversity issues and the more politically sensitive character of research carried out in social sciences and humanities. In the conclusions it is emphasized that the deliverables of the first round of IPBES assessments have to be solid enough from the perspectives of social sciences and humanities, in order to attract more of these scholars to work for the platform in the future.