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This study aims to identify and evaluate the spatial distribution of Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES) benefits perceived by people in both urban and rural areas. A public participation GIS (PPGIS)...

Local scale assessments of ecosystem/landscape services in Africa are insufficient and lack relevance in landscape management. Also, few studies have explored the potential benefits of PGIS/PPGIS approaches for landscape management and stewardship among the participating stakeholders. Our aim is (1) to establish an understanding of the realization of landscape services at the local scale across three multifunctional rural landscapes in Tanzania through PGIS/PPGIS approaches and (2) to create an understanding of these approaches’ potential to support participatory spatial planning. Semi-structured surveys (n = 313) including participatory mapping of provisioning and cultural landscape services were organised to characterise their spatial patterns. The survey results were shared with the communities (n = 97) in workshops where services were ranked and the participants interviewed about their map-reading capacity, personal learning experiences, and their ability to use maps to express opinions. The most abundant landscape services are sites for social gatherings and cultivation. The spatial patterns of provisioning services are realizations of human benefits from the patterns of the biophysical landscape. Overall, cultural landscape services show clustering and small spatial extent (except aesthetics). The PGIS/PPGIS approach allows for local-level, spatially specific discussions between stakeholders. The visual power of maps and satellite images is particularly emphasised. In the data-scarce context common in the Global South, the participatory mapping of landscape services has the potential to advance understanding of the benefits that the landscape has for the local communities and how this information, when mapped spatially, can be integrated with local-level planning practices.

Around 30% of European agricultural landscapes are classified as high nature value (HNV) farmlands. Current policies emphasize the multifunctionality of these landscapes, but little is known about the positive and negative associations of multiple ecosystem services within HNV farmland. This study aims to identify perceived ecosystem services synergies, trade-offs, and bundles in agricultural landscapes of HNV from a socio-cultural perspective. We performed a participatory mapping survey of 10 ecosystem services categories among 2301 rural residents in 13 European sites. We analyzed bivariate synergies and trade-offs between perceived ecosystem services through nonparametric correlation analyses. Spatial bundles of perceived ecosystem services were identified through hierarchical cluster analysis. Multinomial logit models were used to assess the influence of land cover on generating associations of ecosystem services. We find two strong and 16 moderate synergies of perceived ecosystem services (out of 46 possible ecosystem services pairs), mainly among different cultural ecosystem services. We do not reveal moderate or strong trade-offs. We identify five spatial bundles of ecosystem services, termed “Ecosystem services coldspots”, “Wild harvesting ranges”, “Nature areas”, “Recreational spaces”, and “Ecosystem services hotspots”. Of all land-cover co-variates, natural areas, urban areas, and roads have the strongest explanatory power. Our study complements prevailing biophysical and economic analyses of ecosystem services synergies, trade-offs and bundles by a spatially explicit, socio-cultural perspective. We conclude that socio-cultural mapping of ecosystem services is useful for understanding the perceived multifunctionality of a landscape.

The Maritime Spatial Planning (MSP) Directive was ratified (2014/89/EU) along the Strategy of the European Union (EU) on the Blue Economy to contribute to the effective management of maritime activities and resources and incorporate the principal elements of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) (2002/413/EC) into planning at the land-sea interface. There is a need to develop the ICZM approach throughout Europe to realise the potential for both socio-economic and environmental targets set by the EU and national legislations. In this study, we co-developed different approaches for land-sea interactions in four case areas in Estonia and Finland based on the defined characteristics and key interests derived from local or regional challenges by integrating spatial data on human activities and ecology. Furthermore, four ICZM drafts were co-evaluated by stakeholders and the public using online map-based assessment tools (public participatory GIS). The ICZM approaches of the Estonian cases ranged from the diversification of land use to the enhancement of community-based entrepreneurship. The Finnish cases aimed to define the trends for sustainable marine and coastal tourism and introduce the ecosystem service concept in land use planning. During the project activities, we found that increased communication and exchange of local and regional views and values on the prevailing land-sea interactions were important for the entire process. Thereafter, the ICZM plans were applied to the MSP processes nationally, and they support the sustainable development of coastal areas in Estonia and Finland.

openaire: EC/H2020/856602/EU//FINEST TWINS Today, various methods are applied to analyze the data collected through participatory mapping, including public participation GIS (PPGIS), participatory GIS (PGIS), and collecting volunteered geographic information (VGI). However, these methods lack an organized framework to describe and guide their systematic applications. Majority of the published articles on participatory mapping apply a specific subset of analyses that fails to situate the methods within a broader, more holistic context of research and practice. Based on the expert workshops and a literature review, we synthesized the existing analysis methods applied to the data collected through participatory mapping approaches. In this article, we present a framework of methods categorized into three phases: Explore, Explain, and Predict/Model. Identified analysis methods have been highlighted with empirical examples. The article particularly focuses on the increasing applications of online PPGIS and web-based mapping surveys for data collection. We aim to guide both novice and experienced practitioners in the field of participatory mapping. In addition to providing a holistic framework for understanding data analysis possibilities, we also discuss potential directions for future developments in analysis of participatory mapping data.

Academics have frequently used and endorsed the Public Participation Geographic Information System (PPGIS) approach for national park management. However, it is only minimally used by public agencies such as national park organisations. This study explores the potential that managers of Finnish national parks see in the PPGIS approach in the context of planning for the visitor use of parks. Ten semi-structured interviews with managers of Parks and Wildlife Finland were conducted. The managers perceived that PPGIS could help in optimising site management, and preferred PPGIS studies that are practical and clearly connected to planning site management actions. They envisioned a mobile phone application that would allow mapping visitor experiences on the spot. Overall, the managers were open to adopting place-based planning practices. The study increases the understanding of public agencies’ views towards PPGIS. It also produces practical information for conducting PPGIS case studies as well as for integrating PPGIS tools into planning processes.

Small islands are characterised by geographic isolation, strong place attachment, and vulnerabilities to social, economic, and ecological changes. They are often subject to development activities that raise concerns about impacts on multiple land- and seascape values. This study elicits a range of land- and seascape values, development preferences, and land-use conflicts in a Northern Atlantic islands setting. We do so by linking participatory mapping with narrative analysis techniques to elicit landscape values and development preferences and to identify the potential for land-use conflicts. Four narratives were illustrative of human-nature relationships in the North Atlantic, revealing a great appreciation for wildlife and landforms, for peaceful and undisturbed ecosystems, for open access to land and sea, and for people being part of nature as major themes. The overlay of mapped landscape values and development preferences identified areas with a high potential for future land-use conflicts. Tourism development had a particularly high potential for conflicts. The local narratives on development activities – tourism, renewable energy, and fish farming/processing – confirmed diverging viewpoints. Respondents acknowledged the need for new economic opportunities that may create employment and wealth, but were concerned about negative effects for nature and society and the perceived inability to govern these developments. We argue that planning for multiple landscape values and preferences is crucial to manage the potential for trade-offs in land- and seascape development that is influenced by a range of pressures and drivers of change.

Rural Europe encompasses a variety of landscapes with differing levels of forest, agriculture, and agroforestry that can deliver multiple ecosystem services (ES). Whilst provisioning and regulating ES associated with individual land covers are comparatively well studied, less is known about the associated cultural ES. Only seldom are provisioning, regulating, and cultural ES investigated together to evaluate how they contribute to multifunctionality. In this study we combined biophysical and sociocultural approaches to assess how different landscapes (dominated by forest, agriculture or agroforestry) and landscape characteristics (i.e. remoteness and landscape diversity) drive spatial associations of ES (i.e. synergies, trade-offs and bundles). We analysed data of: i) seven provisioning and regulating ES (spatially modelled), and; ii) six cultural ES (derived from participatory mapping data) in 12 study sites across four different biogeographical regions of Europe. Our results showed highly differentiated ES profiles for landscapes associated to a specific land cover, with agroforestry generally providing higher cultural ES than forest and agriculture. We found a positive relationship between the proportion of forest in a landscape and provisioning and regulating ES, whilst agriculture showed negative relationships. We found four distinct bundles of ES. Three of them were directly related to a dominant land cover and the fourth to a mixture of forest and agroforestry that was associated with high social value. The latter bundle was related to zones close to urban areas and roads and medium to high landscape diversity. These findings suggest that agroforestry should be prioritised over other land covers in such areas as it delivers a suite of multiple ES, provided it is close to urban areas or roads. Our results also illustrate the importance and application of including people’s perception in the assessment of ES associations and highlight the relevance of developing integrated analyses of ES to inform landscape management decisions.

Human–nature interactions are reflected in the values people assign to landscapes. These values shape our understanding and actions as landscape co-creators, and need to be taken into account to achieve an integrated management of the landscape that involves civil society. The aim of this research was to increase the current knowledge on the most and least common landscape values perceived by local stakeholders, the patterns in the spatial distribution of values, and their connection to different socio-economic backgrounds and landscape characteristics across Europe. The research consisted of a cross-site comparison study on how landscape values are perceived in six areas of Europe using Public Participation GIS surveys. Answers were analysed combining contingency tables, spatial autocorrelation and bivariate correlation methods, kernel densities, land cover ratios, and viewshed analyses. Results were discussed in the light of findings derived from other European participatory mapping studies. We identified shared patterns in the perception of landscape values across Europe. Recreation, aesthetics, and social fulfilment were the most common values. Landscape values showed common spatial patterns mainly related to accessibility and the presence of water, settlements, and cultural heritage. However, respondents in each study site had their own preferences connected to the intrinsic characteristics of the local landscape and culture. The results encourage land planners and researchers to approach landscape values in relation to socio-cultural and bio-physical land characteristics comprehensibly, acknowledging the complexity in the relationship between people’s perception and the landscape, to foster more effective and inclusive landscape management strategies.

Cultural landscape corridors provide opportunities for recreation and other cultural ecosystem services (CES). Currently, many local governments are preparing cultural landscape corridor (CLC) proposals along China's Silk Roads, which include many notable features of historical human activity and communication between different cultures. However, public values and perceptions of these projects have been largely excluded from the planning processes. This study presents a spatial pattern analysis of public perceptions of the impact of a CLC in Zhangye, China. CES were used as a framework for participatory mapping, interviews, and a structured survey of public perceptions, and correspondence analysis was used to identify resident perceptions of the corridor's expected impact, especially as related to CES. Our results show that aesthetic values, cultural heritage values, and recreation were valued most highly. These values varied according to respondents' employment and land-use rights. The riverside was the most highest-valued area for CES. Respondents expressed concerns about the project's potentially negative impact, especially on the spiritual values of land. These concerns could be the source of conflict during project implementation. We conclude that linking participatory mapping with CES has the potential to improve corridor proposals and assist in the management of conflicts between planners and public stakeholders.

Urban green infrastructure provides a range of experiences for people and various health benefits that support human well-being. To increase urban resilience, exceptional situations, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, are important to learn from. This study aims to understand how the residents in Turku, a middle-sized city in Finland, perceived their outdoor recreation changed and how nature contributed to their subjective well-being during the early phases of the COVID-19. Sites of outdoor recreation and associated ecosystem service benefits were gathered through a map-based survey. In addition, the contribution of nature on subjective well-being was measured through Likert scale statements and the perceived changes in outdoor recreation behaviour were measured through self-reported number of days and from responses to open survey questions. Data was analysed through quantitative, qualitative and spatial methods. The results show that nearly half of the respondents increased outdoor recreation and the majority of outdoor recreation sites were visited more or as often as before the pandemic. The spatial analysis revealed that the most often visited recreation sites were near forests, semi-natural areas and housing areas as well as relatively close to respondent's residence. Respondents had various reasons for changes in outdoor recreation behaviour. For some a shift to working remotely and changes in everyday routines led to spending time outdoors more often and for some spending less while others avoided recreation in crowded areas due to social distancing. The results also indicate that people's opportunities to adapt to the pandemic conditions differ greatly. The nature's contribution to subjective well-being during COVID-19 was important regardless of respondent's outdoor recreation behaviour. Our study highlights that urban planning should respond to different needs for outdoor recreation in order to widely, and in a just way, promote the well-being benefits of urban nature during a pandemic, and to increase the resilience of the city and its residents. Participatory mapping can capture the variety in resident's values and identify key recreation sites of multiple ecosystem service benefits. © 2021 The Authors

Visitors’ assessments of the negative impact of tourism, on physical and social environment, vary based on the location where the evaluation occurs. Research that focuses on identifying visitors’ norms within outdoor recreation settings has not been able to link the geographical location with the corresponding evaluation of unacceptable levels of impact. This study combines a traditional on-site visitor survey with a Public Participation Geographic Information Systems survey to produce spatially explicit information on visitors’ acceptance of tourism impacts. Using a web-based participatory survey, visitors were asked to indicate specific locations where they felt the effects of tourism disturbed the quality of their experience in Oulanka National Park. These evaluations were analyzed at multiple scales — destination, specific zones, and sites — to promote more efficient park management. Based on visitor evaluations, we found a collection of hotspots in the park where tourism has already caused unacceptable impacts. Visitors noted that crowding and erosion disturbed their experiences, especially along highly visited trail sections, while littering was considered problematic near wilderness huts. However, participant satisfaction at these sites was not lower than elsewhere in the park. This indicates that the association between negative impacts of tourism and visitor satisfaction is not straightforward, but complex. This study encourages the collection of spatially accurate data on visitors’ assessments of the effects of tourism because it has the potential to more efficiently direct park management policies. In addition, spatial techniques provide a new means to monitor the impacts of tourism, acknowledging that visitors’ perceptions of acceptability of tourism impacts also vary within tourism destinations, such as parks.

Previous studies have recognized the importance of social dimensions of ecosystem services and their incorporation into planning processes. However, understanding how people’s management preferences relate to their perceptions of ecosystem services and biodiversity still needs further exploration in different geographical contexts. We aimed to examine spatial patterns and relationships between perceived ecosystem services, biodiversity and management preferences to illuminate possible synergies and trade-offs between them, and their relationships to protected areas. Empirical data on perceptions of eleven ecosystem services, biodiversity, and seven management preferences were collected using a paper-based participatory mapping technique in a case study in Khorasan Razavi, Iran. The results revealed that provisioning service hotspots were moderately associated with biodiversity (r = 0.39) and cultural service hotspots (r = 0.54), while cultural and biodiversity hotspots showed to be more highly associated (r = 0.71). The hotspot areas for development preferences had low spatial overlap with provisioning hotspots (r = 0.32) and high overlap with conservation preference hotspots (r = 0.66). The majority of service and biodiversity hotspots were located inside protected areas, which indicates that protected areas provide resources that support local livelihoods and social well-being. The findings provide an appropriate foundation for incorporating social perceptions, deriving from needs and interests of local communities, into planning and management.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization&rsquo, s (UNESCO&rsquo, s) Biosphere Reserves aim to be flagships of sustainable landscapes. Many of them are important locations for tourism and leisure activities. We explored the perceptions of short-term visitors and summer residents on ecosystem services (ESs) tied to characteristic habitats of the Archipelago Sea Biosphere Reserve in Finland. During holiday season, we conducted structured on-field interviews with 74 Biosphere Reserve visitors. From these data, we gained information on the visitors&rsquo, appreciation of different ESs and the selected habitats. We also derived habitat-specific ES profiles. Excluding the reedbeds, most habitats were both highly valued and considered as important producers of the listed ESs. The derived ES profiles were partially overlapping and inclined towards appreciation of cultural services, and the importance of scenery was highlighted. Provisioning services were not particularly appreciated. We discovered several linkages among biodiversity, ESs, and recreational land uses. Certain habitats were found to be in need of protection under high recreational land-use pressure, but also potential synergies were found. Our method introduces an important socio-cultural perspective into the region&rsquo, s land management that aims to find a balance between the protection of the Biosphere Reserve&rsquo, s unique biodiversity and the need to support sustainable local livelihoods and tourism.

International audience; Rural development policies in many Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries promote sustainable landscape management with the intention of providing multiple ecosystem services (ES). Yet, it remains unclear which ES benefits are perceived in different landscapes and by different people. We present an assessment of ES benefits perceived and mapped by residents (n = 2,301) across 13 multifunctional (deep rural to peri-urban) landscapes in Europe. We identify the most intensively perceived ES benefits, their spatial patterns, and the respondent and landscape characteristics that determine ES benefit perception. We find outdoor recreation, aesthetic values and social interactions are the key ES benefits at local scales. Settlement areas are ES benefit hotspots but many benefits are also related to forests, waters and mosaic landscapes. We find some ES benefits (e.g. culture and heritage values) are spatially clustered, while many others (e.g. aesthetic values) are dispersed. ES benefit perception is linked to people's relationship with and accessibility to a landscape. Our study discusses how a local perspective can contribute to the development of contextualized and socially acceptable policies for sustainable ES management. We also address conceptual confusion in ES framework and present argumentation regarding the links from services to benefits, and from benefits to different types of values.

Cultural ecosystem services, such as aesthetic and recreational enjoyment, as well as sense of place and local identity, play an outstanding role in the contribution of landscapes to human well-being. Online data shared on social networks, particularly geo-tagged photos, are becoming an increasingly attractive source of information about cultural ecosystem services. Landscape photographs tell about the significance of human relationships with landscapes, human practices in landscapes and the landscape features that might possess value in terms of cultural ecosystem services. Despite all the recent advances in this emerging methodological approach, some challenges remain to be explored: (a) how to assess a broad suite of cultural ecosystem services, beyond aesthetic beauty of landscapes, (b) how to identify the landscape features that are relevant for providing cultural ecosystem services and determine trade-offs and synergies among cultural ecosystem services. To address these challenges, we have developed a methodological approach suitable for eliciting the importance of cultural ecosystem services and the landscape features underpinning their provision across five different sites in Europe (in Estonia, Greece, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland). We have performed a content analysis of 1.404 photos uploaded in Flickr and Panoramio platforms that can represent cultural ecosystem services. Four bundles of landscapes features and cultural ecosystem services showed the relation of recreation with mountain areas (terrestrial recreation) and with water bodies (aquatic recreation). Cultural heritage, social and spiritual values were particularly attached to landscapes with woodpastures and grasslands, as well as urban features and infrastructures, i.e. to more anthropogenic landscapes. A positive though weak relationship was found between landscape diversity and cultural ecosystem services diversity. Particularly wood-pastures and shrubs were more frequently portrayed in all study sites in comparison with their actual land cover. The results can be of interest both for methodological purposes in the face of an increasing trend in the use of geo-tagged photos in the ecosystem services research and for the elicitation and comparison of landscape values across European cultural landscapes.

While a number of studies have applied public participation GIS (PPGIS) approaches to the spatial assessment of ecosystem services, few have considered the associations between the spatial distribution of ecosystem services and the context-specific nature of self-reported well-being. In this study, we engage the general public to identify and map a range of ecosystem services that originate in place-based, local knowledge and explore the context-dependent nature of subjective well-being. We conducted a PPGIS survey with 219 local residents in a Spanish agroforestry (dehesa) landscapes and analysed the spatial patterns of mapped ecosystem services, their relation to land cover, protected area and common land patterns. In addition, we explored the landscape values contributing to people’s well-being; and the relationships between ecosystem services in different land covers, landscape values and socio-demographic characteristics. A mosaic of landscape types (i.e., the landscape) provided more ecosystem services (especially cultural and provisioning) to people compared with the individual land system of agroforestry. However, land tenure and public access significantly guided the spatial practices and values of the people beyond the preferred landscape types. The contribution of the landscape to well-being is largely related to values based on interactions among people and the landscape, as tranquillity/relaxation and people-people interactions such as being with family and friends. We discuss the specific contribution of agroforestry landscapes to the provision of ecosystem services and human well-being. We conclude that the integration of the applied methods of social-cultural assessment on the one hand links to ecosystem services frameworks but on the other hand represents a more holistic conceptualisation of people’s benefits from landscapes.

We review public participation GIS (PPGIS) and participatory GIS (PGIS) approaches for ecosystem services to identify current and best practice. PPGIS/PGIS are spatially explicit methods that have evolved over the past decade to identify a range of ecosystem services. Although PPGIS/PGIS methods demonstrate high potential for the identification of ecosystem services, especially cultural services, there has been no review to evaluate the methods to identify best practice. Through examination of peer-reviewed, empirical PPGIS/PGIS studies, we describe the types of ecosystem services mapped, the spatial mapping methods, the sampling approaches and range of participants, the types of spatial analyses performed, and the methodological trade-offs associated with each PPGIS/PGIS mapping approach. We found that multiple methods were implemented in nearly 30 case studies worldwide with the mapping of cultural and provisioning services being most common. There was little evidence that mapped ecosystem data was used for actual decision support in land use planning. Best practice has yet to coalesce in this field that has been dominated by methodological pluralism and case study research. We suggest greater use of experimental design and long-term case studies where the influence of mapped ecosystem services on land use decisions can be assessed.

In order to identify sustainable management solutions for small-scale farmer agroecosystems, a better understanding of these dynamic forest–farmland systems, existing farming and forestry strategies, and farmer perspectives is important. We examined the relationship between agricultural land use patterns and farmers’ practices and identified existing and potential characteristics of healthy agroecosystems at local scale in the context of village communities in Zanzibar, Tanzania. With in-depth household survey and participatory mapping, five distinct cropping patterns were identified and their relation to land cover elucidated. Consequences of the diverse local farming strategies to field level cultivation patterns are dynamic. However, long-term adaptation of the local farmers to prevailing edaphic site conditions and resource-poor circumstances create fragmented but fairly stable land use patterns at landscape level. By integrating local expert knowledge and realities with scientific knowledge, we ident...

Forest transitions cannot be separated from the overall changes in land uses and land cover patterns. On a local scale, these changes relate closely to values and preferences which people set on different land use strategies. We have analysed the dynamics of forested land cover over the last 50 years in Zanzibar, Tanzania, in relation to farmers’ material and non-material place-based forest benefits. Our results show that forest change patterns are emerging from the adaptations of farmers’ traditional land use practices to prevailing physical site conditions and accessibility and availability of resources. External forces, such as government intervention in the form of planting and gazetting, have had a substantial influence on the increase in forest cover during the last couple of decades but also challenged farmers to adapt to changing land use regimes. Our study implies that forest management and land use planning efforts, such as community forest management processes implementing REDD+, would substant...

The evaluation of landscape services essentially deals with the complex and dynamic relationships between humans and their environment. When it comes to landscape management and the evaluation of the benefits these services provide for our well-being, there is a limited representation of stakeholder and intangible values on the land. Stakeholder knowledge is essential, since disciplinary expert evaluations and existing proxy data on landscape services can reveal little of the landscape benefits to the local stakeholders. This paper aims at evaluating the potential of using local stakeholders as key informants in the spatial assessment of landscape service indicators. A methodological approach is applied in the context of a rural village environment in Tanzania, Zanzibar, where local, spatially sensitive stakeholder knowledge is crucial in solving land management challenges as the resources are used extensively for supporting community livelihoods and are threatened by economic uses and agricultural expansion. A typology of 19 different material and non-material, cultural landscape service indicators is established and, in semi-structured interviews, community stakeholders map these indicators individually on an aerial image. The landscape service indicators are described and spatially analysed in order to establish an understanding of landscape level service structures, patterns and relationships. The results show that community involvement and participatory mapping enhance the assessment of landscape services. These benefits from nature demonstrate spatial clustering and co-existence, but simultaneously also a tendency for spatial dispersion, and suggest that there is far more heterogeneity and sensitivity in the ways the benefits are distributed in relation to actual land resources. Many material landscape service indicators are individually based and spatially scattered in the landscape. However, the well-being of communities is also dependent on the non-material services, pointing out shared places of social interaction and cultural traditions. Both material and non-material services are preferred closest to settlements where the highest intensity, richness and diversity are found. Based on the results, the paper discusses the role of local stakeholders as experts in landscape service assessments and implications for local level management processes. It can be pointed out that the integration of participatory mapping methods in landscape service assessments is crucial for true collaborative, bottom-up landscape management. It is also necessary in order to capture the non-utilitarian value of landscapes and sensitivity to cultural landscape services, which many expert evaluations of landscape or ecosystem services fail to do justice.

Recent land cover change estimates show overall decline of tropical forests at the regional and global scales caused by multiple social, cultural and economic factors. There is an overall concern on the prevailing land use practices, such as shifting cultivation and extraction of forest materials as agents of forests losses, but also new, emerging land uses are threatening tropical forests. Understanding of the long-term development and driving forces of forest changes are needed, especially at local levels where many decisions on forest policies and land uses are made. This paper addresses the importance of such information for improved estimates of forest dynamics by studying local level land cover and land use changes during the last 50–70 years in the Eastern African tropical island of Zanzibar, Tanzania. The paper discusses the role of traditional and new land uses mainly subsistence farming, tourism and government interference through tree planting, in the long-term development of the forests at the village level. The material for the study is gathered from the interpretation of archival maps and aerial photographs combined with contemporary digital aerial photographs. The analyses are based on the mapping, spatial sampling and spatio-temporal change trajectory analysis (LCTA) of forest land cover, forest land uses and settlement patterns with GIS and statistics. Six distinct forest land cover change trajectories were identified and these illustrate dynamic and heterogeneous nature of the forests. Closed forest cover has dominated throughout due to cyclical land use patterns, but over 70% of the land area has been continuously transforming between closed, semi-open and open land cover conditions. Land use turnover rates indicate that hardly any forest areas are left untouched from the forces, which remove and re-establish forest vegetation in the long run. Land cover and land use change trajectories are spatially fragmented in the studied landscape. Majority of forest loss-gain dynamics is caused by shifting cultivation, while forest losses are most dramatic along the coast, where traditional and new land uses meet and land uses pressures are highest. The study suggests that landscape change trajectory analyses, where contemporary and historical information on land uses and land cover changes are spatially linked, can provide valuable aspects into local level forest land use planning and management strategies. For the case study, the findings suggest the following key forest management strategies for consideration: (1) establishment of a protected forest/scrubland in participation with the local stakeholders, especially the farmers, (2) promotion of areas for permanent agricultural practices, while simultaneously introducing management controls in the traditional slash-and-burn farming areas, and (3) promoting new livelihood opportunities for the farmers, who have traditionally been dependent on forest resources, meanwhile introducing alternatives for fuel wood for cooking.

Over the past decades, landscapes worldwide have experienced changes (e.g., urbanization, agricultural intensification, expansion of renewable energy uses) at magnitudes that put their sustainability at risk. The understanding of the drivers of these landscape changes remains challenging, partly because landscape research is spread across many domains and disciplines. We here provide a systematic synthesis of 144 studies that identify the proximate and underlying drivers of landscape change across Europe. First, we categorize how driving forces have been addressed and find that most studies consider medium-term time scales and local spatial scales. Most studies assessed only one case study area, one spatial scale, and less than four points in time. Second, we analyze geographical coverage of studies and reveal that countries with a non-European Union/European Free Trade Association membership; low Gross Domestic Product; boreal, steppic, and arctic landscapes; as well as forestland systems are underrepresented in the literature. Third, our review shows that land abandonment/extensification is the most prominent (62% of cases) among multiple proximate drivers of landscape change. Fourthly, we find that distinct combi- nations of mainly political/institutional, cultural, and natural/spatial underlying drivers are determining landscape change, rather than single key drivers. Our systematic review indicates knowledge gaps that can be filled by: (a) expanding the scope of studies to include underrepresented landscapes; (b) clarifying the identification and role of actors in landscape change; (c) deploying more robust tools and methods to quantitatively assess the causalities of landscape change; (d) setting up long-term studies that go beyond mapping land-cover change only; (e) strengthening cross-site and cross-country comparisons of landscape drivers; (f) designing multi-scale studies that consider teleconnections; (g) considering subtle and novel processes of landscape change.

We develop a landscape stewardship classification which distinguishes between farmers’ understanding of landscape stewardship, their landscape values, and land management actions. Forty semi-structured interviews were conducted with small-holder (100 acres) in South-West Devon, UK. Thematic analysis revealed four types of stewardship understandings: (1) an environmental frame which emphasized the farmers’ role in conserving or restoring wildlife; (2) a primary production frame which emphasized the farmers’ role in taking care of primary production assets; (3) a holistic frame focusing on farmers’ role as a conservationist, primary producer, and manager of a range of landscape values, and; (4) an instrumental frame focusing on the financial benefits associated with compliance with agri-environmental schemes. We compare the landscape values and land management actions that emerged across stewardship types, and discuss the global implications of the landscape stewardship classification for the engagement of farmers in landscape management. Refereed/Peer-reviewed