Ecosystem services of fast-growing tree plantations: A case study on integrating social valuations with land-use changes in Uruguay

The rapidly increasing area of tree plantations, especially in the tropics and subtropics, has raised expectations and concerns as to their impact on ecosystem services. We studied the effect of the establishment of eucalyptus and pine plantations on local people's social valuations of ecosystem services in a case study in Uruguay. We also assessed the social and political restrictions that might limit the establishment of new markets for ecosystem services. Our study showed that the rapid change in land use in Uruguay over the past 20 years, from grassland to plantations, has affected people's perceptions of landscape's capacity to produce ecosystem services. The ecosystem services of plantations that showed the greatest discrepancy between local people's valuations and both recognition by experts and current scientific evidence were biodiversity, water effects, and carbon cycling. We found that in particular regulating services, and some provisioning ones, are quite well recognized by substance specialists, but are sometimes rather unfamiliar to the general public. The proper planning of plantations may improve the provision of ecosystem services, such as biodiversity enhancement, wood availability for fire and energy, water quality, and carbon sequestration, while at the same time diluting some others. The selection of ecosystem services to be taken into account in plantation management depends both on local cultural values and on the particular environmental pressures considered to be most in need of mitigation.