Search results for "SERVICES"

Mitigating forest biodiversity and ecosystem service losses in the era of bio-based economy

2018

Abstract Forests play a crucial role in the transition towards a bioeconomy by providing biomass to substitute for fossil-based materials and energy. However, a policy-policy conflict exists between the desire to increase the utilization of bio based renewable resources and the desire to protect and conserve biodiversity. Increasing forest harvest levels to meet the needs of the bioeconomy may conflict with biodiversity protection and ecosystem services provided by forests. Through an optimization framework, we examined trade-offs between increasing the extraction of timber resources, and the impacts on biodiversity and non-wood ecosystem services, and investigated possibilities to reconcil…

Disintegration of Italian rural landscapes to international environmental agreements

2015

In Italy, the first law that puts landscape and historical buildings under public control was implemented in 1922. While this represents a significant achievement for those times, for that law landscape essentially has an historical and aesthetic connotation, without any explicit reference to the components of flora, fauna and geology. Today, many protection policies and initiatives are still biased by the lack of reference to the intrinsic value that biodiversity and ecosystem services have for the maintenance of traditional landscapes, as well as for the survival of the human species. The priority accorded to historical and aesthetic values can lead to a lack of attention to the complex r…

Ecosystem processes are rarely included in tactical fisheries management

2015

Fish stock productivity, and thereby sensitivity to harvesting, depends on physical (e.g. ocean climate) and biological (e.g. prey availability, competition and predation) processes in the ecosystem. The combined impacts of such ecosystem processes and fisheries have lead to stock collapses across the world. While traditional fisheries management focuses on harvest rates and stock biomass, incorporating the impacts of such ecosystem processes are one of the main pillars of the ecosystem approach to fisheries management (EAFM). Although EAFM has been formally adopted widely since the 1990s, little is currently known to what extent ecosystem drivers of fish stock productivity are actually imp…

Designer ecosystems : A solution for the conservation-exploitation dilemma

2016

Increase in human population is accelerating the rate of land use change, biodiversity loss and habitat degradation, triggering a serious threat to life supporting ecosystem services. Existing strategies for biological conservation remain insufficient to achieve a sustainable human-nature relationship and this situation has fueled a debate on the conservation-exploitation dilemma. We need to devise novel strategies, in a mutually inclusive way, which can support biological conservation and secure economic development of deprived populations. Here we propose the use of designer ecosystems which can ensure ecological sustainability while providing ample and some new means of livelihood to loc…

Characterization and conservation of Clinopodium raimondoi Spadaro, A.S. Faqi & Mazzola germplasm in the Parco della Favorita of Palermo city (Si…

2017

In urban areas, the parks represent an important source of plant biodiversity. The Parco della Favorita is the largest green area in Palermo city (Sicily, Italy). Clinopodium raimondoi Spadaro, A.S. Faqi & Mazzola is an aromatic plant species which has a range of uses in Sicilian traditional culture. The essential oil of this species is rich in terpene components and its aroma is similar to that of mint. The aim of this study was to enhance the germplasm of C. raimondoi in the Parco della Favorita. A collection-field was set up within the park. The main biometric and productive parameters of the species were determined and gas chromatographic analyses were carried out to determine the quali…

Economics of mixed-species forestry with ecosystem services

2019

The Faustmann–Hartman setup is widely established for specifying the economics of forest values besides timber, but it is criticized as restrictive for capturing diversity values. We show that extending the model to cover diversity attributes, i.e., mixed species and internal heterogeneity within species, is not enough to overcome these restrictions. Additionally, it is necessary to extend forest harvesting regimes to cover thinning, continuous cover forestry, and the management of commercially useless trees. Restrictions in the Faustmann–Hartman setup are first shown analytically with optimized thinning but without tree size structures. The empirical significance of these findings is show…

LTSER platforms as a place-based transdisciplinary research infrastructure: learning landscape approach through evaluation

2019

Context: Place-based transdisciplinary research involves multiple academic disciplines and non-academic actors. Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research (LTSER) platform is one concept with ~ 80 initiatives globally. Objectives: As an exercise in learning through evaluation we audited (1) the siting, construction and maintenance of individual LTSER platforms, and (2) them as a distributed infrastructure for place-based transdisciplinary research with focus on the European continent. Methods: First, we defined a normative model for ideal performance at both platform and network levels. Second, four surveys were sent out to the 67 self-reported LTSER platforms officially listed at the end of 2016.…

A global baseline for ecosystem recovery

2016

Transformation of agricultural landscapes in the Anthropocene: Nature's contributions to people, agriculture and food security

2020

Fil: Vanbergen, Adam J. Université de Bourgogne Franche-Comté. AgroSup Dijon. Agroécologie. Francia. Fil: Aizen, Marcelo A. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente. Rio Negro, Argentina. Fil: Aizen, Marcelo A. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas de Argentina. Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente. Rio Negro, Argentina. Fil: Cordeau, Stephane. Université de Bourgogne Franche-Comté. AgroSup Dijon. Agroécologie. Francia. Fil: Garibaldi, Lucas A. Universidad Nacional de Río Negro. Instituto de Investigaciones en Recursos Naturales, Agroecología y Desarrollo Rural. Río Negro, Argentina. Fil: Ga…

ILTER – The International Long-Term Ecological Research Network as a Platform for Global Coastal and Ocean Observation

2019

International audience; Understanding the threats to global biodiversity and ecosystem services posed by human impacts on coastal and marine environments requires the establishment and maintenance of ecological observatories that integrate the biological, physical, geological, and biogeochemical aspects of ecosystems. This is crucial to provide scientists and stakeholders with the support and knowledge necessary to quantify environmental change and its impact on the sustainable use of the seas and coasts. In this paper, we explore the potential for the coastal and marine components of the International Long-Term Ecological Research Network (ILTER) to fill this need for integrated global obs…