therapeutic value, captured by indicators showing how people connect with nature
(e.g. educational or spiritual). Other indicators could be the ones used from Schmidt
et al. (2016) for parks’ benefits using CICES (Haines-Young and Potschin 2013)
definitions. These include recreation, sense of place and inspiration perceptions, with
the CES-related ones being either experiencing nature (experiential use of plants,
animals and land- or seascapes in different environmental settings), physical use of
nature (physical use of land- or seascapes in different environmental settings),
education, cultural heritage or aesthetics.
8.5 Conclusions
The management of human activities in marine areas is particularly complex, due to
the usually fragmented political and administrative nature of such areas. The intensive use of maritime space calls for more integrated management practices, to avoid
negative effects on marine ecosystems, user conflicts, and to create synergies
between maritime activities and promote the blue economy. MPAs can be an
efficient tool to achieve these goals, and ES-based management has a vital role in
this process, considering that in most marine areas, human activities are not spatially
managed and monitored, while human impacts on ecosystem services are not taken
into account when management initiatives are considered. But even in cases where
ES do have a role in MPA management, CES are usually the least considered, if not
ignored. However, the designation of MPAs that include historic shipwrecks,
endangered habitats, etc. can offer combined opportunities for leisure activities
and blue tourism but also social resistance by impacting people’s perceptions on
the marine environment and affect the CES such as seascape, leisure and cultural
identities.
As a result, CES valuation can become an extremely useful tool that can shed
light to the benefits derived from the cultural aspects of MPAs, guiding policymakers
and management authorities. Integrated and adaptive management will help MPA
managers to identify and adopt policies and practices that involve both cultural and
natural resources at the ecosystem and landscape levels. This necessitates perception
studies on CES to reveal potential conflicts and trade-offs or synergies which in turn
highlights the need for a common framework and further research in monetary and
non-monetary methods for capturing all the necessary information. So far, the
variety of conceptual frameworks around the CES categorization has undermined
this opportunity. Recent developments and the shift of the research agenda can create
a fertile ground for the integration of CES in MPA planning and management. Given
the highly subjective nature of CES, stated preference methods have the lion’s share
in this debate, and there seems to be a consensus that the more CES will become
important, the more these methods will need to be developed to accommodate the
specificities associated with these services. Recent projects that apply the combination of monetary and non-monetary valuation methods in MPA management are
AMARE (Interreg) and RECONNECT (Interreg).
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(e.g. educational or spiritual). Other indicators could be the ones used from Schmidt
et al. (2016) for parks’ benefits using CICES (Haines-Young and Potschin 2013)
definitions. These include recreation, sense of place and inspiration perceptions, with
the CES-related ones being either experiencing nature (experiential use of plants,
animals and land- or seascapes in different environmental settings), physical use of
nature (physical use of land- or seascapes in different environmental settings),
education, cultural heritage or aesthetics.
8.5 Conclusions
The management of human activities in marine areas is particularly complex, due to
the usually fragmented political and administrative nature of such areas. The intensive use of maritime space calls for more integrated management practices, to avoid
negative effects on marine ecosystems, user conflicts, and to create synergies
between maritime activities and promote the blue economy. MPAs can be an
efficient tool to achieve these goals, and ES-based management has a vital role in
this process, considering that in most marine areas, human activities are not spatially
managed and monitored, while human impacts on ecosystem services are not taken
into account when management initiatives are considered. But even in cases where
ES do have a role in MPA management, CES are usually the least considered, if not
ignored. However, the designation of MPAs that include historic shipwrecks,
endangered habitats, etc. can offer combined opportunities for leisure activities
and blue tourism but also social resistance by impacting people’s perceptions on
the marine environment and affect the CES such as seascape, leisure and cultural
identities.
As a result, CES valuation can become an extremely useful tool that can shed
light to the benefits derived from the cultural aspects of MPAs, guiding policymakers
and management authorities. Integrated and adaptive management will help MPA
managers to identify and adopt policies and practices that involve both cultural and
natural resources at the ecosystem and landscape levels. This necessitates perception
studies on CES to reveal potential conflicts and trade-offs or synergies which in turn
highlights the need for a common framework and further research in monetary and
non-monetary methods for capturing all the necessary information. So far, the
variety of conceptual frameworks around the CES categorization has undermined
this opportunity. Recent developments and the shift of the research agenda can create
a fertile ground for the integration of CES in MPA planning and management. Given
the highly subjective nature of CES, stated preference methods have the lion’s share
in this debate, and there seems to be a consensus that the more CES will become
important, the more these methods will need to be developed to accommodate the
specificities associated with these services. Recent projects that apply the combination of monetary and non-monetary valuation methods in MPA management are
AMARE (Interreg) and RECONNECT (Interreg).
132
L. Stergiopoulou et al.