Mapping stakeholder networks for the co-production of multiple ecosystem services: A novel mixed-methods approach

Abstract

Governance of ecosystem services (ES) requires an understanding of the complex dynamics of collaboration (and contestation) of multiple stakeholders and multiple ES. However, many studies consider only a few ES or stakeholder groups. In our work, we map the co-production of multiple ES by multiple stakeholders connected through ES governance networks. Through a unique combination of Public Participatory Geographic Information Systems (PPGIS), stakeholder focus groups, surveys, and social network analysis, we reveal insights on social-ecological fit of ES co-production across an area unified by a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve designation.

By overlaying relationships between stakeholders, multiple ES, and ES co-production networks, our results reveal gaps and mismatches in the ES governance system. We identified mismatches between those ES most valued by the region’s inhabitants and those managed, governed and studied by relevant institutions and stakeholders. Cultural ES were the most highly appreciated by stakeholders, but social networks of cultural ES governance were the least densely connected, with highly influential stakeholders involved in cultural ES management (e.g., farmers), not well connected to the governance network. Thus, our findings point to a weakness in cultural ES governance and the need of incorporating cultural ES more clearly into natural resource management agendas.

Our results show the importance of mapping what is being discussed by whom, and that mapping environmental governance networks alone does not necessarily provide sufficient resolution to understand co-production of different ES. We confirm the difficulties of governing ES when the ES providers and/or beneficiaries operate at different or distant scales, the scale of ecological processes does not match management (e.g., in some regulating and maintenance ES), or stakeholders which are important in affecting ES provision are not involved in governance, resulting in social-ecological misfit. Lastly, our work confirms the broad array of research methods needed to capture the complexity of governing multiple ES.