Abstract
Protected areas safeguard species and habitats, but also provide ecosystem services (ES) and quite often simultaneously protect landscape character and associated cultural values. In this contribution, we present selected results from two different projects addressing socio-cultural valuation of ES in large-scale protected areas as perceived by their managers and also visitors (in the latter case focused on cultural ES). The methods used include semi-structured interviews, intercept questionnaire surveys with participatory mapping, and focus groups.
Managers of protected areas perceive cultural and regulating ES as most important while cultural benefits were a more referenced group than regulating benefits. The single most frequently referenced category of benefits was habitat creation and maintenance. Regarding challenges in governance of protected areas, habitat creation and maintenance and supporting identities were two of the most negatively influenced benefits by various types of land-use management (esp. agriculture and forestry).
Visitors of protected areas perceive and value a broad range of non-material benefits from local nature and landscape. Preliminary findings from a preference assessment exercise point to a key role of therapeutic and aesthetic benefits. Further results from qualitative analysis of open-ended questions regarding a) reasons to visit nature and specific places, b) places connected with emotions and c) eudaimonic values are still being processed and are expected to be presented at the conference. Participatory mapping allowed to map point, line and polygon features and therefore the resulting maps present a unique and inclusive spatial visualization of actual use of cultural ES in protected areas.