Safeguarding ecosystem services and livelihoods: Understanding the impact of conservation strategies on benefit flows to society

Louise Willemen, Evangelia G. Drakou, Martha B. Dunbar, Philippe Mayaux and Benis N. Egoh

Ecosystem Services, 2013, vol. 4, issue C, 95-103

Abstract: Society has always benefited from ecosystems through the provision of ecosystem services. To ensure a continuous flow of these benefits, different strategies aimed at safeguarding ecosystem services are proposed. In this paper we explore how biodiversity conservation measures, particularly protected areas, influence the flow of ecosystem services to different members of society. We highlight the impact of these measures on the poorer members of society because of their strong dependence on ecosystem services to sustain their livelihood. For the Democratic Republic of Congo we mapped five ecosystem services (food production, tourism, carbon, timber and fuel wood production) using spatial landscape indicators, within and outside protected areas, and identified their direct beneficiaries. This illustration was used to feed a round-table discussion on the impact of different conservation strategies on society, held with ecosystem services professionals during the 4th Ecosystem Service Partnership Conference in the Netherlands. The discussion highlighted the need for spatial methods to assess ecosystem service trade-offs, as well as the main challenges for conservation measures to contribute to both livelihood improvement and conservation gains. We argue that, ecosystem services maps can play a crucial role in understanding and managing the trade-offs in ecosystem service flows resulting from conservation strategies.

Keywords: Protected area; Democratic Republic of Congo; GIS; Ecosystem Service Partnership (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212041613000132
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:4:y:2013:i:c:p:95-103

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoser.2013.02.004

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 ().