Public Preferences Across Europe for Different Forest Stand Types as Sites for Recreation

Abstract

Traditional policies for water resources management and wetland conservation are often based on command-andcontrol approaches. The latter tend to drive the human-wetland-water system into pathological states, characterized by more vulnerable ecosystems and rigid institutions for governance. The overcoming of these states may rest in the development of flexible and adaptive institutional regimes that rely on adaptive governance and management. Because past factors might constrain the implementation of more flexible adaptive approaches to management, it is important to understand the historical mechanisms underlying the genesis of institutional rigidity. We first present the results of a historical analysis of Doñana, which can be characterized as a pathological water socio-ecosystem governed through rigid institutional regimes for water resources management and wetland conservation. In a second step, we analyze the advances achieved during a recent, large-scale restoration program for the Doñana wetlands, which adhered explicitly to the tenets of adaptive management. Our analysis indicated that the historical persistence of command-and-control approaches has been a path-dependent process that led to the emergence of a rigid institutional regime and caused it to enter a rigidity trap. However, the achievements of the restoration program suggest that a more flexible and adaptive regime could be developed through the introduction of adaptive management at the operational levels, using specifically tailored action research programs. To conclude, we speculate that the research strategy outlined could be extended to comply with, or complement, the requirements of the EU's Water Framework Directive in other European water socio-ecosystems.

Quantifying cultural ecosystem services: Disentangling the effects of management from landscape features

“…However, this corroborates the findings of Edwards et al. () that broadleaves and mixtures are only marginally preferable to conifers and monocultures, respectively. Furthermore, although these preferences are generally found across Europe, results are mixed (Felton et al., ; Gundersen & Frivold, ; Termansen et al., ), so it is perhaps not particularly surprising that there is not a more dramatic distinction between broadleaves and conifers or between mixtures and monocultures.…”

Comparing instrumental and deliberative paradigms underpinning the assessment of social values for cultural ecosystem services

“…Non-economic assessments of ecosystem services have rapidly advanced in recent years (e.g., Fagerholm et al, 2012, Klain and Chan, 2012, Sherrouse et al, 2011and Sherrouse et al, 2014. They typically engage local stakeholders in the identification and quantification of a broad range of 'social' and 'cultural' values for ecosystem services using participatory techniques such as Delphi surveys (e.g., Edwards et al, 2012), scenario analysis (e.g., Maes et al, 2012), Q method (e.g., Hodge, 2012 andKerr andSwaffield, 2012), multi-criteria analysis (e.g., Karjalainen et al, 2013, Nahuelhual et al, 2013and Verburg et al, 2014 and public participation GIS (e.g., Brown et al, 2011, Raymond et al, 2009, Sherrouse et al, 2011, Sherrouse et al, 2014and Van Riper et al, 2012. While terms such as 'social' and 'cultural' value have been fuzzy, difficult to define and applied in different contexts (Ives and Kendal, 2014), the non-economic ecosystem services literature has tended to conceive social values expressed in non-monetary terms as a more pluralistic and heterogeneous alternative to economic conceptions of value .…”

Valuing forest biodiversity through a national survey in France: a dichotomous choice contingent valuation

“…Moreover, various case studies have demonstrated that European people prefer broadleaved or mixed forest and often consider coniferous stands as less natural; that could negatively influence WTP values (Mill et al 2007;Edwards et al forthcoming). Lower values are observed for southwestern and southeastern parts of France, while upper values are observed for northeastern and Paris areas.…”