Opportunities for Ecosystem Services in the Protected Areas in the Coastal–Rural Area of the Nemunas Delta and the Curonian Lagoon (Lithuania)

Abstract

Ecosystems can provide a wide range of services that are critical to human well-being, health, subsistence, and survival. Examining the coherence between humans and ecosystems, ensuring the social and economic well-being of present and future generations in the context of ecosystem services (ES), this article seeks to present empirical research carried out on the possibilities of adapting human activities to ecosystem services in a specific area; namely, a coastal–rural area in the Lithuanian coastal zone, Nemunas Delta and Curonian Lagoon in Lithuania, seeking to offer opportunities with the rapidly declining population to operate services of ecosystems. Thus, elderships located near the Curonian Lagoon or within the protected area of the Nemunas Delta Regional Park were selected for the study. For this purpose, the empirical study involved representatives of different (public and private) sectors and stakeholders. The research was carried out in local tourism cultural centres and elderships with four group respondents (tourists, farmers, entrepreneurs, eldership employees). The research revealed that development of nature tourism could provide a lot of benefits for the region; after discovering the links between farming and nature tourism, possibilities would emerge to promote local farmers’ production by selling, not the raw materials, but already processed production, which has greater added value. The aforementioned tourist development ideas, especially in the ecologically vulnerable region, would enable the protected areas’ employees, local farmers, businesspeople, and municipal employees to seek new methods to adapt ecologically vulnerable areas for tourist needs without damaging the ecosystems.

Can We Talk about Smart Tourist Villages in Mărginimea Sibiului, Romania?

“…The rural localities in Sibiu County with the highest number of tourist accommodation structures are Cârt , is , oara (38), Gura Râului (33), Sibiel (31), and Răs , inari (29). All these localities are in the mountain area, and the last three belong to the "Mărginimea Sibiului" area, whose uniqueness is due to the ancient shepherding activity of the inhabitants.…”

“…The practice of ecotourism [32] and agritourism [33,34] in communities bordering protected areas can be a model of sustainable use [34] of the tourism resources that the area offers [35,36]. Increased investment in building a smart rural tourism environment leads to improved living conditions for locals and tourists and facilitates access to good-quality public services [37], while providing ecosystem services [38]. The satisfaction of tourists depends on the technologies used, the existing innovations, and the quality of the local experience [39].…”

Peran Modal Sosial dalam Pengembangan Komponen Pariwisata di Desa Wisata Pentingsari

“…Hal ini membuktikan bahwa pariwisata berpengaruh sangat vital di sektor ekonomi (Nourmohammadi & Gómez-Martín, 2022). Sebagai contoh pariwisata akan mendatangkan keuntungan bagi pekerja-pekerja informal yang bekerja di sektor pariwisata seperti tukang parkir, tukang ojek, sopir angkot, hingga karyawan restoran dan sektor lain yang tidak terkait langsung dengan pariwisata seperti pertanian di mana hasil pertaniannya bisa dijadikan sebagai bahan makanan di restoran atau rumah makan yang melayani wisatawan (Marcinkevičiūtė et al, 2022). Oleh karena itu pariwisata berperan dalam ekonomi regional (Riswandha Risang Aji, 2020).…”

Evaluation of typical ecosystem services in Dabie Mountain area and its application in improving residents' well-being

“…Relevant research mainly conducts mutual analysis by constructing different service indicators, statistics, and livelihood or well-being indicators of questionnaires. The research methods mainly include matching statistics ( Suich et al., 2015 ), regression analysis ( Hu et al., 2018 ), coupling coordinated degree ( Pan et al., 2020 ) and perception questionnaire ( Yang et al., 2019 ; Marcinkevičiūtė et al., 2022 ; Xiong et al., 2022 ), etc. The above research has played a good role in complementing and promoting the understanding of the relationship between ecosystem services and human well-being at different space-time scales, but the impact mechanism, coupling model, ecological process of them still needs to be explored ( Zang and Zou, 2016 ; Zhao, 2017 ).…”