The ecosystem services (ES) framework was developed to articulate and measure the benefits humans receive from ecosystems. Cultural ecosystem services (CES), usually defined as the intangible and nonmaterial benefits ecosystems provide, have been relatively neglected by researchers and policy-makers compared to provisioning, supporting, and regulating services. Although valuing CES poses several conceptual and methodological difficulties, it is of huge interest and importance because of the linkages between cultural values, valuation methods, and the individual and collective decision-making that influence ecosystems and human wellbeing. This review is not a how-to guide, but rather examines key conceptual issues and maps critical areas of debate. There is a range of potential approaches to assessing CES; however, choices regarding valuation methods and their role in decision-making are shaped by cultural and political dynamics. CES are at a crossroads. They can potentially act as a fruitful conceptual container for a broad range of interdisciplinary research into human-environment relations and transform how decisions regarding the environment are made, but they can also be used to legitimize and entrench modes of decision-making that marginalize and undermine the very values they are intended to protect.

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Terrestrial net primary productivity (NPP) is an important metric of ecosystem functioning; however, there are little empirical data on the NPP of human‐modified ecosystems, particularly smallholder, perennial crops like cocoa (Theobroma cacao), which are extensive across the tropics. Human‐appropriated NPP (HANPP) is a measure of the proportion of a natural system's NPP that has either been reduced through land‐use change or harvested directly and, previously, has been calculated to estimate the scale of the human impact on the biosphere. Additionally, human modification can create shifts in NPP allocation and decomposition, with concomitant impacts on the carbon cycle. This study presents the results of 3 years of intensive monitoring of forest and smallholder cocoa farms across disturbance, management intensity, distance from forest and farm age gradients. We measured among the highest reported NPP values in tropical forest, 17.57 ± 2.1 and 17.7 ± 1.6 Mg C ha−1 year−1 for intact and logged forest, respectively; however, the average NPP of cocoa farms was still higher, 18.8 ± 2.5 Mg C ha−1 year−1, which we found was driven by cocoa pod production. We found a dramatic shift in litterfall residence times, where cocoa leaves decomposed more slowly than forest leaves and shade tree litterfall decomposed considerably faster, indicating significant changes in rates of nutrient cycling. The average HANPP value for all cocoa farms was 2.1 ± 1.1 Mg C ha−1 year−1; however, depending on the density of shade trees, it ranged from −4.6 to 5.2 Mg C ha−1 year−1. Therefore, rather than being related to cocoa yield, HANPP was reduced by maintaining higher shade levels. Across our monitored farms, 18.9% of farm NPP was harvested (i.e., whole cocoa pods) and only 1.1% (i.e., cocoa beans) was removed from the system, suggesting that the scale of HANPP in smallholder cocoa agroforestry systems is relatively small.

Central to contemporary debates on land tenure in sub-Saharan Africa are questions concerning appropriate pathways to successfully harmonize customary and statutory land tenure arrangements to address normative goals of improving access to land and security of tenure for the poor and marginalized. These are particularly prevalent in the face of increasing commodification and individualisation of land rights. Developing appropriate land policies requires a detailed understanding of existing tenurial dynamics. This paper draws on a mixture of qualitative methods and a household survey among 380 farmers from 19 villages in the Kakum and Ankasa areas of southcentral and western Ghana, to explore the mechanisms of land access, control and ownership arrangements, focusing on key differentiations around gender, age and ethnicity. The results articulate how transformations in land tenure have shifted patterns of accessing land in favour of wealthier individuals to the relative disadvantage of women, young people and poor people regardless of ethnicity. The analysis further indicates that the 'self-transformation' or dynamism of local customary tenure arrangements is inadequate for addressing issues of challenges in access to and control of land, particularly by the vulnerable social groups. This is evidenced by some traditional authorities and local powerful elites capitalizing on the 'new opportunities' afforded by the emergent tenurial relations to advance their individual interests at the expense of the vulnerable groups. Overall, the study highlights how ongoing changes in customary tenure arrangements towards individualisation are far more complex and socially embedded than is often assumed. The paper underscores the need for land policy reforms to shift away from static approaches geared towards promoting efficiency or merely lauding customary tenure arrangements towards more flexible approaches that accommodate the complexity of contemporary changes to land tenure arrangements.