9 research outputs found
Il était une (première) fois à l\u27Ifla
Après vous avoir vivement encouragés à participer au 80e congrès de l\u27Ifla à Lyon en août dernier, nous avons recueilli les premiers témoignages de la première participation à un tel événement... Une façon de vous préparer à l\u27idée de participer à l\u27édition 2015 au Cap, en Afrique du Sud
Looking into Pandora’s Box: Ecosystem disservices assessment and correlations with ecosystem services
Cultural and territorial vitality services play a key role in livestock agroecological transition in France
Nature’s contribution to people as a framework for examining socioecological systems: The case of pastoral systems
Awareness and perceptions of ecosystem services in relation to land use types: Evidence from rural communities in Nigeria
How Ecosystem Services Knowledge and Values Influence Farmers' Decision-Making
International audienceThe ecosystem services (ES) concept has emerged and spread widely recently, to enhance the importance of preserving ecosystems through global change in order to maintain their benefits for human well-being. Numerous studies consider various dimensions of the interactions between ecosystems and land use via ES, but integrated research addressing the complete feedback loop between biodiversity, ES and land use has remained mostly theoretical. Few studies consider feedbacks from ecosystems to land use systems through ES, exploring how ES are taken into account in land management decisions. To fill this gap, we carried out a role-playing game to explore how ES cognition mediates feedbacks from environmental change on farmers' behaviors in a mountain grassland system. On a close to real landscape game board, farmers were faced with changes in ES under climatic and socio-economic scenarios and prompted to plan for the future and to take land management decisions as they deemed necessary. The outcomes of role-playing game were complemented with additional agronomic and ecological data from interviews and fieldwork. The effects of changes in ES on decision were mainly direct, i.e. not affecting knowledge and values, when they constituted situations with which farmers were accustomed. For example, a reduction of forage quantity following droughts led farmers to shift from mowing to grazing. Sometimes, ES cognitions were affected by ES changes or by external factors, leading to an indirect feedback. This happened when fertilization was stopped after farmers learned that it was inefficient in a drought context. Farmers' behaviors did not always reflect their attitudes towards ES because other factors including topographic constraints, social value of farming or farmer individual and household characteristics also influenced land-management decisions. Those results demonstrated the interest to take into account the complete feedback loop between ES and land management decisions to favor more sustainable ES management
What drives the vulnerability of pastoralists to global environmental change? A qualitative meta-analysis
The long-term viability of pastoralism has been a constant theme for discussions. The progress of
knowledge on the sustainability of pastoralism under global environmental change has been notable in
the last years. To better characterize this vulnerability, we have examined the existing scientific
knowledge about the three dimensions of vulnerability, being exposure illustrated by the existing climate
trends and non-climate transformations, sensitivity by the impacts of these on pastoral resources and
pastoral land conversions, and adaptation by the adaptation strategies developed by the pastoral
communities. A qualitative meta-analysis was conducted to explore patterns and trends across the
literature. From this, six different pathways of vulnerability being followed by pastoral communities
were identified: Encroachment, Re-greening, Customary, Polarization, Communal and No-alternative.
The results point that the livelihood options of pastoralists are generally becoming narrower. Four
major forces are identified as exerting determinant influence on the co-production of the vulnerability of
pastoralism: (i) the double exposure to climate and non-climate transformations, (ii) the persistence of
unfavorable development policies, (iii) the great vitality of adaptation, and (iv) the multifaceted role of
markets. We point that it is crucial to distinguish between the component of vulnerability inherent in any
economic activity devoted to the use of natural resources, which is the usual business of pastoralism, and
the component of vulnerability linked to external forces that disturb the usual working of the pastoral
production strategies