Awareness and perceptions of ecosystem services in relation to land use types: Evidence from rural communities in Nigeria
Wei Zhang,
Edward Kato,
Prapti Bhandary,
Ephraim Nkonya (),
Hassan Ishaq Ibrahim,
Mure Agbonlahor,
Hussaini Yusuf Ibrahim and
Cindy Cox
Ecosystem Services, 2016, vol. 22, issue PA, 150-160
Abstract:
For the ecosystem service (ES) paradigm to be relevant to policy and decision-making, it is important to integrate local residents' awareness and perceptions of ES into ES assessment. Using data collected from 102 villages in Nigeria, we assessed communities' awareness and perceptions of a broad range of ES in relation to land use types. We also examined the factors that affected awareness levels across communities. While provisioning services were generally recognized, a majority of the villages also appreciated spiritual values as a cultural service. Awareness of regulating and supporting services, including those that were important for maintaining the stability and productivity of agroecosystems, was generally low. Exposure to forest, unused land, and lowland floodplain was positively correlated with respondents' awareness. In addition, socio-economic and cultural factors such as ethnicity and food intake status had important influence on the awareness levels, whereas adult literacy and government extension programs had limited influence. These results underscore the importance of direct experience and local context in shaping people's awareness about ES. While communities demonstrated diverse ways of using land and deriving ES, much remains to be done to increase awareness and knowledge among communities about the benefits and provision of ES in Nigeria.
Keywords: Awareness; Perception; Ecosystem services; Farmers; Land use; Nigeria (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212041616304120
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoser:v:22:y:2016:i:pa:p:150-160
DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoser.2016.10.011
Access Statistics for this article
Ecosystem Services is currently edited by Leon C Braat
More articles in Ecosystem Services from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().