The ecosystem services concept: a new Esperanto to facilitate participatory planning processes?

Landscape Ecology - Several case studies investigated the role of ecosystem services in participatory planning processes. However, no systematic study exists that cuts across a large number of...     

Integrating stakeholders’ demands and scientific knowledge on ecosystem services in landscape planning

The conflict between conservation and timber production is shifting in regions such as Biscay (Basque Country, northern Spain) where planted forests are no longer profitable without public subsidies and environmentalist claim that public subsidies should be reoriented to the regeneration of natural forest. This paper develops an approach that integrates scientific knowledge and stakeholders’ demands to provide decision-making guidelines for the development of new landscape planning strategies while considering ecosystem services. First, a participatory process was conducted to develop a community vision for the region’s sustainable future considering the opportunities and constrains provided by the landscape and its ecosystems. In the participatory process forest management was considered an important driver for the region`s landscape development and forest multi-functionality was envisioned as a feasible attractive alternative. The participatory process identified a knowledge gap on the synergies and trade-offs between biodiversity and carbon storage and how these depend on different forest types. Second, to study the existing synergies and trade-offs between biodiversity and carbon storage and disentangle the identified knowledge gap, a GIS-based research was conducted based on spatially explicit indicators. Our spatial analysis results showed that natural forests’ contribution to biodiversity and carbon storage is higher than that of the plantations with exotic species in the region. The results from the spatial analysis converged with those from the participatory process in the suitability of promoting, where possible and appropriate, natural forest ecosystems restoration. This iterative learning and decision making process is already showing its effectiveness for decision making, with concrete examples of how the results obtained with the applied approach are being included in planning and decision-making processes.     

DUI and STI innovation modes in the Canadian wine industry: The geography of interaction modes

This paper explores the geography of collaborations and interactions that are linked to DUI (Doing, Using, and Interacting) and STI (Scientific and Technologically based Innovation) innovation modes in the wine industry: that is, the geography of interaction modes. DUI and STI interaction modes are analysed by exploring their association with innovation and the extent to which this varies with geography. The results, based upon firm-level data from a sample of 151 Canadian wineries, suggest that different types of innovation are connected to specific interaction modes. We show that the effects of each interaction mode are strongly dependent on whether the mode is deployed regionally or non-regionally. In particular, the paper highlights marked differences between regional and non-regional DUI and between regional and non-regional STI interactions modes with respect to their association with innovation outcomes.