Role of the cultural ecosystem services provided by natural heritage in forest territories for sustainable regional development

Abstract

The paper focuses on the role of the Natural Heritage in Forest Areas (NHFA) as a resource that can generate economic, social and environmental benefits for society through the provision of a wide range of cultural ecosystem services. In the assessment of the role of NHFA, the approach for assessment and mapping of ES in a given territorial scope was applied in a pilot region of Velingrad Municipality, focusing on the capacity of the forest ecosystems to provide cultural ecosystem benefits and services to the people. The study confirms that the identification of NHFA could be a powerful driver for regional development by creating significant positive effects such as improving sustainable cultural tourism in forests, diversifying forestry and supporting sustainable development and management of forest areas. The integration of the cultural services of NHFA into forest-related legislation can encourage job creation in different sectors and for different levels of employment, education and cultural training. Evaluation and mapping of ecosystem services is an appropriate tool to support the development of a concept and methods for assessing and mapping the general knowledge framework for NHFA policy in Bulgaria by applying an interdisciplinary approach.

National natural heritage at risk: The Seven Rila Lakes

“…This would make a significant difference to both their preservation and promotion and their capitalisation as tourist sites. Studies of Nedkov et al (2014), Nedkov et al (2018Nedkov et al ( , 2021Nedkov et al ( , 2021aNedkov et al ( 2021b, Zhiyanski et al (2021), Hristova and Stoycheva (2021), Neugarten et al (2018) provide a good methodological basis for the development of sustainable models for tourism development. The practical application of the ecosystem approach for assessing the capacity of ecosystems to provide ecosystem services for recreation and tourism is well developed both for the territory of the country (Ihtimanski et al 2020, Prodanova 2021) and for specific natural heritage sites in Bulgaria (Silvestriev et al 2021, Semerdzhieva and Borissova, 2021).…”

Natural heritage as a source of ecosystem services for recreation and tourism in Bulgaria

“…Such effects include: i) improving sustainable cultural tourism in forests; ii) diversifying forestry; iii) supporting sustainable development and management of forest areas. Furthermore, integrating the cultural services delivered from the forest areas into forest-related legislation can encourage job creation in different sectors and regions (Zhiyanski et al 2021).…”

“…Mapping of NH potential to provide ES at a local level is provided in two case studies. The potential of forest ecosystems to provide cultural ES in Velingrad municipality is studied by Zhiyanski et al (2021), while the potential of the NH at the landscape level is mapped for the area of the Strazhata syncline upland and Melovete hills in North-Central Bulgaria by Prodanova (2021).…”

How individual scores affect the final expert-based assessments of ecosystem services: Range and mean scores analysis of natural heritage supply maps

“…The findings of their paper suggest that the number of the studies using the ES matrix approach has increased more than 10 times for the last 10 years (until 2019). Various studies applied the matrix approach for different assessments, for example in abandoned agricultural lands (Anpilogova and Pakina (2022), cross-border assessments (Sieber et al 2021), local scale assessment (Nedkov et al 2017, Grigorov, 2021, Zhiyanski et al 2021, experimental mapping (Prodanova,2021), a tiered approach of urban ecosystems (Nedkov et al, 2018), and for studying the recreational ecosystem services from stakeholders' perspective by (Seijo et al 2021, Bezak andBezakova, 2014). Some of these studies, such as Jacobs and Burkhard (2017), Roche and Campagne (2019), Ma et al (2019), Perrenes et al (2020), Sieber et al (2021) have analyzed the perceptions of different groups of people for ecosystems and the services they provide.…”