LB 11-149 - CANCELLED - Stakeholder’s perspective on the importance of forest ecosystem services in Paraguay

Background/Question/Methods:

Ecosystem services (ES), the benefits humans receive from nature, are decreasing worldwide due to ecosystem degradation, overexploitation, and unsustainable management practices. Although concept/framing of ES gained much attention since the release of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment in 2005 and has been increasingly integrated into conservation policy mechanisms; there are still many challenges and barriers towards integrating ES into implementation plans. One challenge centers on understanding the importance of ES for different stakeholder groups. Different stakeholders inevitably have different interests, and these can be particularly significant across cultural groups. Therefore, there is a need to expand our knowledge by decolonizing our methodologies to integrate local and traditional knowledge. To address this, we assess the importance of forest ES for multiple stakeholder groups in the Paraguayan Chaco region using multiple participatory research methodologies. We conducted 139 in-person and online surveys to identify the most relevant forest ES for five stakeholder groups (i.e., Indigenous communities, residents, cattle ranchers, and local and national decision-makers). The survey instrument combined a relatively new ranking method called Best-Worst Scaling (BWS, 13 observations), with an open-ended alternative question (126 observations).

Results/Conclusions:

Food (24%) and wood (14%) were the most relevant forest ES considering all stakeholders’ groups. For almost all groups, provisioning is the most important service. Decision-makers listed regulating/supporting as the most important services. Both Indigenous communities identified food (35%) as the most important ES; however, for residents and cattle ranchers, only 14% and 13% respectively listed food as important. Wood was the most important forest ES for these two last groups. We also learned that Indigenous communities have a more holistic/integrated vision to value forests. The higher ES number mentioned corresponds to residents who listed 14 provisioning, supporting, regulating, and cultural services. Each group mentioned different forest ES, only the Indigenous communities listed honey, and only cattle ranchers listed climate protection and food for cattle, air quality maintenance, and fire protection. Indigenous communities give higher importance to raw materials for crafts compared to other groups. Our results show the importance of considering all stakeholders in an ES approach to identify tradeoffs and synergies in land-use decisions. This information can serve as a basis for negotiating land-use plans in multifunctional landscapes, as well as providing insights that foster policy changes to promote participatory processes that conserve biodiversity and reduce land-use conflicts.