There is often pressure on protected area managers to enhance wild landscapes and protect biodiversity while simultaneously promoting goals such as assuring ongoing provision of ecosystem services and providing for tourist and recreational needs. In the current study, we investigate two tools that may provide different types of management-relevant knowledge on recreation ecosystem services to aid management decisions in a protected area (PA), particularly where such tradeoffs must be considered. We constructed a spatial recreational model of the whole Cairngorms National Park, Scotland (ESTIMAP-Recreation), parameterised by hard and soft recreationalists (providing “where and what” types of knowledge). We then conducted 33 interviews with managers, residents, and visitors, asking if and how they considered the resulting maps useful. In parallel, we conducted focused walking interviews in two contrasting park sites, favoured by hard and soft recreationalist to determine if it was possible to gain further insight into other aspects of the recreational ecosystem services (the “why”). These walking interviews were conducted in a woodland adjacent to an urban area (30 interviews) and in a wild landscape mountain area (22 interviews). The complimentary nature of these approaches highlights the diverse sources of knowledge PA managers may exploit to assist in managing the many conflicting objectives imposed upon them.

The development of cultural ecosystem services (CES) concept has progressed beyond the common categories of economic benefits from tourism and recreation, and yet definitions of CES remain vague and often shallow. It is necessary to develop methodologies that can more fully express the depth of meaning of non-material benefits humans receive from nature to both strengthen the conceptual foundation of CES, and to support the evaluation, management, and decision-making processes pertaining to protected areas and other environments. This study demonstrates how embodied interviews, conducted with informants while walking in nature, capture real-time intuitive and grounded perceptions of, and reactions to, four different ecosystem types and their associated services. The results provide a deeper and more nuanced understanding of diverse human-nature relationships and reflect two distinct groups of CES values or themes: general (common across research sites) and local (site-specific). The twelve General CES include cognitive and psychological services, among them calmness and newness, heightened imagination and curiosity, increased energy and motivation, and gaining new perspectives. Local themes differed from one ecosystem to another and included more biodiversity- and geodiversity-related values pertaining to local species and geology, as well as more sensory-based experiences.

Assessing the environmental status of Protected Areas (PAs) is a challenging issue. To indicate that status, the identification of a common set of variables that are scientifically sound, and easy to assess and monitor by the PA practitioners, is particularly important. In this study, a set of 27 Essential Variables (EVs) for PA management was selected in a bottom-up process from 67 harmonised variables that describe the status of Ecosystem Functions and Structures, Ecosystem Services, and Threats in PAs. This bottom-up process involved 27 internationally recognised PAs, mostly European, with different level of protection, different extent, and a wide range of human-nature interactions. The EVs were selected by more than 120 practitioners, i.e. PA managers and rangers, as well as scientists, working in terrestrial and aquatic PAs. Across both terrestrial and aquatic PAs, scientists and practitioners largely identified the same variables as important. Data availability for these 27 EVs varied between PAs and av

eraged 67% across all studied PAs. As this set of EVs for PAs is defined through a bottom-up approach considering variables already in use both in management and research, it is more than for previous EVs likely to be adopted, applied and developed to record the status and changes in the ecological and socio-economic conditions of PAs and to forecast future changes. Thereby, the EVs for PAs present a common vocabulary and tool to enhance in a uniform way the (inter)national communication, exchange and comparison of information on the status of PAs between policy makers, scientists and PA managers. The perceived status of the EVs, on an average 3.6 on a scale to a maximum of 5, indicates the surveyed PAs are in a moderate to good environmental condition. Moreover, the EVs for PAs form a cost- and time-efficient tool for PA managers to monitor developments in essential elements of their PAs, including the potential for Societal Goods and Benefits (SG&B), and to (pro-)actively tackle the potential threats that may arise in their area. Likewise, for policy makers EVs for PAs may support decision making on ecosystem management, spatial planning, and predictive modelling on the future status and requirements of PAs in their country or region.

Ecosystem services (ES) assessments have become ubiquitous tools for informing land-use management. Stakeholder integration is crucial for assuring the societal relevance and potential impact of these assessments. While advocating stakeholder integration is prevalent, it is less common in practice and there is uncertainty regarding whether stakeholders perceive ES assessments as effective for addressing land-use management challenges. We use a transdisciplinary approach to integrate stakeholders in an ES assessment conducted in the Mount Carmel Biosphere Reserve (BR) in Israel and explore how stakeholders perceived the utility of the ES knowledge produced. The integration was done at three phases during the assessment: (1) a stakeholder analysis, followed by semi-structured interviews (2) focus group discussions and (3) stakeholder workshops to discuss the results. Thematic analysis of interviews, discussions and workshops revealed that stakeholders perceive ES knowledge as an effective conceptual tool to educate and raise public awareness, strategic tool to advance pre-existing plans/actions/policies, and instrumental tool to influence decision-makers, recruit funding and increase management focus on cultural services. We conclude that the ES assessment may strengthen the standing of stakeholders and assist them in overcoming BR management challenges. Importantly, the assessment process catalyzed partnerships among stakeholders and between scientists and stakeholders, which continued after the assessment concluded. As a boundary object, the ES assessment contributed to reviving a conflicted BR by bringing an ostensibly neutral scientific discourse to the table.

Providing for growing food demand while minimizing environmental degradation is a major contemporary environmental challenge. Agri-environmental schemes (AESs) are often promoted to meet this challenge by providing subsidies to farmers who adopt agri-environmental practices (AEPs). The success of these schemes depends on the ability to engage farmers, thus understanding farmers' perceptions about AEPs is pivotal. Yet, current knowledge is limited as most research explores farmer's attitudes towards existing AESs, often based on subsidies. We explored the attitudes of farmers and their communities towards five different AEPs, and towards a potential AES, in an area of intensive agriculture in Israel, where currently no AES are implemented. We conducted five focus group sessions with 41 farmers, 12 follow-up interviews, and a survey with 296 community members.

Findings indicate that farmers' willingness to implement AEPs was driven by environmental, personal, and social considerations, particularly perceptions of “good farming” practices, such as community cohesiveness and maintaining control of one's field. Farmers' lack of trust in the government, and lack of personal or local experience with specific AEPs, are other major barriers for joining a potential AES. Farmers perceived financial compensation as a safety net, but placed social and cultural values on par with, or above, financial considerations for joining an AES. Farmers' communities demonstrated high support for implementing AEPs, indicating that communities could be an asset for AES development. Therefore, while incentives for many AESs are based primarily on monetary compensation, to achieve their desired long-term results they should also focus on farmer resilience, independence, knowledge creation, and socio-cultural capital development.

Human-driven landscape changes strongly influence landscape functionality and aesthetics. While landscape planners have access to biophysical data for decision-making, they often do not have the necessary information about social variables, such as aesthetic tastes, feelings, or functions of a place. Visualizing future landscapes under alternative management scenarios could be a valuable tool for aiding land management decisions. Towards these ends, empirical, quantitative ecological data on vegetation composition, pattern, and processes in a Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site in Israel were integrated into a computerized, 3-D representation of current and future landscapes. Our objectives were (1) to visualize landscape-shaping processes, such as wildfire, grazing, and species colonization, that can assist managers, planners, and the public to envision the long-term visual significance of management alternatives and (2) to validate the similarity between the 3-D model and reality. The visual model we developed is based on 30 years of scientific knowledge and ecological data describing vegetation processes in Ramat Hanadiv, a case study of ecological conditions and processes relevant to the Mediterranean and other complex ecosystems worldwide. Before studying the role of the 3-D model in decision-making, validation was performed by comparing ‘current state’ model representation with real-world photos from the perspective of the observer. The model was found to be a valid representation of reality. Looking to the future, we suggest that the ability to create future landscapes using scientific data can assist to improve decision-making processes, balancing ecological and social needs.

Cultural ecosystem services, defined as the intangible benefits that humans derive from ecosystems, are at once self-evident and allusive to define, specifically because they are a function of culture and the interaction between two dynamic systems: human societies and natural ecosystems. Mediterranean pine forests, as a product of millennia of human–nature interactions are therefore an exemplary and challenging case study for assessing cultural services. In this review, I assess cultural ecosystem services supplied by Mediterranean pine and mixed forests. I first expand upon the challenges of assessing cultural ecosystem services, emphasizing the dynamic nature of social-ecological systems and their feedbacks. Cultural service assessments are considered highly context-specific, subject to change with changes in social context, shifts in ecosystem structure and function, and resultant changes in social and ecological interactions. Next, based on a review of the recent literature, I inventory the range of cultural services provided by, and relational values inspired by, pine and mixed-pine forests around the Mediterranean Basin. Then, the case of pine forests in contemporary Israel is used as an example of the challenges of assessing cultural services. I conclude by providing some consistent trends in cultural ecosystem provision, and finally look to the future of cultural service from pine forests, considering forecasted environmental changes in the Mediterranean Basin.

Cultural ecosystem services (CES) are important components of urban quality of life. Public participation GIS (PPGIS) is widely used to assess and map these services. However, it is often a time-consuming exercise with which only small spatial and temporal scales can be addressed. Assessments based on geolocated, passively crowdsourced data from social media present new opportunities to assess CES through a large amount of available data and for broad spatial and temporal scales. We assess the potential of these two methods to substitute, supplement or complement each other in terms of the qualitative information they provide (i.e., landscape features of interest and CES). We take as a case study seven green and blue open spaces of the city of Haifa (Israel), each presenting different elements of interest in the landscape and degrees of accessibility. Results indicate that the two methods provide unique results and are complementary in many instances. We discuss the representativeness of the social media data, the strength of the two methods with respect to the qualitative information obtained, the specificities related to the urban context and the instances of complementarity. We suggest that crowdsourced social media data should be included in broad, multi-methodological approaches to CES.

Despite a widely agreed necessity for agroecological transition, there are various substantial constraints that hinder the adoption of alternative, more sustainable, practices. We employ the niche management concept to examine the initial phases of transition in the local wine-growing niche in Israel, or specifically, the replacement of herbicides with the use of cover-crops combined with the practice of mowing of herbaceous growth using specialized trimming machines. Our goal is to uncover the triggers, drivers and agents of change in farming practices within the agroecological system in which it happened, despite entrenched, widely recognized risk perceptions among farmers. The problem-oriented research design revolved around a transdiciplinary team that included ecologists and social scientists. We identified three groups of frontrunners who initiated, developed and sustained the adoption of the more sustainable agricultural practices. The two-year study focused on interviewing vineyard farmers who were transitioning to cover crops, and this qualitative research was paralleled with continuous ecological monitoring. The farmers believed that the risks inherent in the new practice, if any, were preventable and manageable. The transdisciplinary research design, which integrated farmers into the social and ecological research process, further assisted in facilitating a transition by creating a forum for stimulating communication between diverse stakeholders during the transition, increasing trust between actors from the various sectors and identifying key issues of concern (e.g., risk and associated costs) to better align the motives of farmers, wine-makers, and ecologists. The research design may have also contributed to the adoption of a more holistic view of the agroecological system by various stakeholders and the belief that one cultivation method clearly benefits the system, particularly in the long-term. We therefore conclude with key-insights on the role of the research itself in agroecological transition processes.

Driven by the increasing awareness that innovative approaches to solving the problems at hand in our complex human-environment interactions require closer collaboration among scientific disciplines and communities, inter- and transdisciplinary integration is continuously gaining importance in R&D agendas and Research Infrastructure (RI) development strategies. In addition, the complexity and costs of RIs have substantively increased in many realms triggered by technological developments and the need to organize beyond national and continental boundaries. This suggests cross-disciplinary collaborations, sharing and multiple usage of infrastructures. Alignments of infrastructure developments needed for this purpose require a conceptual framework for disciplinary integration suited for identifying common approaches and resulting infrastructure design and service components. We will report on recent advancements in building a common theoretical base between major communities that is – inter alia - underlying the ongoing implementation of the Integrated European Ecosystem, critical zone and socio-ecological Research Infrastructure (eLTER RI). An overview of considered theories on within- and cross-scale interactions and feedback loops will be given and the pathway to the “Whole System Approach for in-situ research on Life Supporting Systems in the Anthropocene” (WAILS) will be presented. We will also expand on the potential of such unifying approach in theory-guided integration and division of tasks amongst related environmental RIs. Expected practical implications are answers to questions like where concretely existing and planned European environmental RIs are challenged to interact in response to common overarching questions, and what practical fora and mechanisms (across RIs) would be needed to bridge the gap between research teams driven (bottom-up) efforts and the centralistic RI design and operations.