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Agri-environmental schemes (AES) are important policy instruments within the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union for environmental protection. Due to the voluntary nature of AES, their attractiveness to farmers and stakeholders involved in nature management and protection (nature managers) is essential for high participation levels. This study aims to assess farmers' and nature managers' ideas to improve agri-environmental schemes. We analyzed suggestions of 825 farmers and 118 nature managers for improvements of AES collected in a large-scale survey in Bavaria, Germany. A content analysis was applied to categorize and compare suggestions by farmers (differentiated into two groups through a cluster analysis) and nature managers. The results reveal that stakeholders were highly willing to share ideas and made detailed suggestions for improvements and individual measures. They were aware of the importance of protecting nature and promoting biodiversity in agricultural landscapes and acknowledged the necessity of (financial) support programs. Farmers placed more emphasis on the practicability and profitability of measures on arable land, while nature managers tended to propose policy-related ideas focusing on nature protection, biodiversity, and specific species. Among farmers, suggestions differed with farm characteristics such as the operation mode (full-time, part-time). These findings can support the design of future AES, accounting for different background situations and thereby increasing acceptability. This includes considering perspectives from different stakeholder groups and creating regionally adapted programs with varying levels of flexibility and practicability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Balancing the demand for ecosystem services (ES) with available supply is one key challenge for decision making in sustainable landscape management. ES demand is context-specific. Therefore, the assessment of perceptions articulated by multiple societal actors in different regions can help to identify differences and commonalities in predominant preferences for landscapes and their ES. The goal of this study was to investigate four societal actor groups (citizens, farmers, foresters, nature managers) in 12 study regions across Bavaria, Germany, with respect to their valuation of landscapes and ES provided by certain landscape elements. The 2,438 participants mapped specific locations and selected landscape elements that they perceived as valuable, and further elaborated on this value in open statements. We applied qualitative content analysis, word frequency analysis, spatial location-density analysis, and statistical testing. The perceived value of landscape elements for ES differed across actor groups and regions. Preference for landscape elements was driven by topography and land use and was significantly associated with actor groups. The most apparent differences occurred between farmers and nature managers. Generally, participants preferred forests, water bodies, natural landscapes, and distinct geographical structures. The landscape was mostly valued for its habitat, diverse wildlife, recreational purposes, climate-regulating functions, and provisioning of water and food. We conclude that, although differences exist among societal actors, the study respondents highly valued the importance of functioning and diverse ecosystems. The high perceived value for many ecosystem services and species protection suggests that ambitious policy measures are supported by different societal actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People's perceptions of climate change are crucial for their readiness to engage in mitigation and adaptation. To identify the most influential factors in shaping perceptions of climate change, we conducted a comprehensive survey, carried out in Bavaria, Germany. Overall, 2,594 individuals across four societal actor groups were surveyed, namely 1,413 farmers, 197 foresters, 152 nature managers, and 832 citizens (no specific profession). We explored to what extent environmental factors (climate trends and land cover conditions in interviewees' place of residence -- based on geographical data) and socio-demographic factors (age, gender, education, societal actor group affiliation -- based on survey data) influence perceptions of climate change. Data analyses, including random forest algorithms, revealed socio-demographic factors, particularly societal actor group affiliations, as most influential variables. Local land cover conditions and climate trends only marginally affected residents' perceptions. Consequently, our results suggest to consider socio-demographic factors for tailoring climate communication, policies and awareness raising campaigns, particularly targeting societal groups most skeptical about climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The agricultural management of grasslands not only is strongly linked to fodder production but also provides other valuable ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration, nutrient regulation, and recreation. Capturing the values that society places on such ecosystem services is a step to provide management recommendations. To elicit the societal value of grasslands and their ecosystem services, it is important to consider multiple dimensions, namely, instrumental, intrinsic, and relational values. We conducted surveys with citizens in 2018 and 2020 in two study areas in Bavaria, Germany: one grassland-dominated and one with mixed agricultural land use. In the surveys, the respondents were invited to map up to seven points in their respective regions where they perceived grasslands to be 'especially valuable'. Also, the respondents could provide reasons for this selection. These verbatims were classified into instrumental, intrinsic, and several sub-types of relational values using Qualitative Content Analysis. Next, we conducted a hotspot analysis that revealed spatial hotspots and coldspots for each value type. Besides some overlaps, we found that hotspots of instrumental, intrinsic, and relational values varied in space. A Constrained Correspondence Analysis underlined the trade-offs between instrumentally valued grasslands that are perceived as suitable to supply provisioning services and intrinsically valued grasslands that are closely related to relational values such as care. The results show that grasslands and their ecosystem services are valued for a variety of reasons on different locations, and point out the need for further investigations of the spatial distribution of values associated with ecosystem services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecosystem services such as food provisioning, climate regulation, nutrient cycling, or recreation in open landscapes underpin human wellbeing. They are highly dependent on land use, land cover and utilization pattern as well as environmental factors like climate, topography and soil. In consequence, ecosystem services supply shows a high spatial variability. However, it is less clear if the perception of the importance of ecosystem services is similarly heterogeneous in space and amongst societal actors. The aim of this large-scale study was to explore whether land cover and climate gradients as well as socio-cultural factors influence the perceptions of ecosystem services of four groups of societal actors: citizens, farmers, foresters and nature managers. Spatially explicit survey data of 3018 respondents allowed to gain insight into the distribution of perceived importance of 21 ecosystem services in the federal state of Bavaria, Germany together with the respondents' socio-cultural characterisation (e.g. gender, education and hobbies in nature). Responses were analysed through descriptive statistics, redundancy analysis, and Generalized Linear Models. Results reveal that the perceived importance of many ecosystem services was consistently high across groups, although perception differed for some ecosystem services (e.g. production of energy plants and timber as well as recreation in urban green space). Compared to other actor groups, farmers attributed slightly lower importance to all ES except provisioning services. Socio-cultural factors better explained variability in perceived importance of ecosystem services than land cover and climate gradients. This might be either explained by the fact that the environmental gradients vary not strong enough in our case study or that they do not shape the perceptions of respondents. A limitation of the study is that the sample of respondents obtained is not representative for the population, but biased towards persons interested in the topics of the survey. Still the consensus indicated by the overall positive perception of ecosystem services among respondents highlights the integrative potential of ecosystem services when included in decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]