Perceived benefits from agroforestry landscapes across North-Eastern Europe: What matters and for whom?

Abstract

Agroforestry landscapes are crucial to human wellbeing; however, they are in sharp decline across Europe. Improved understanding of the complexity of agroforestry landscapes within different biophysical, social-cultural, economic and governance contexts is essential for designing effective policy and management interventions that are more tightly aligned with societal expectations and aspirations. This paper identifies and compares values that people attribute to agroforestry landscapes across North-Eastern Europe, using case studies in Sweden, Latvia, Belarus, and the Russian Federation. We apply the multiple-value approach developed for the conceptual framework of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services to an assessment of agroforestry landscapes. Using data from a total of 1634 face-to-face structured interviews, we (i) analyse and explore the preferences of diverse groups of respondents for agroforestry landscapes; (ii) identify a broad range of nature’s contributions to people (NCP) that were attributed to agroforestry landscapes by respondents; and, (iii) analyse values of agroforestry landscapes across different contexts in NorthEastern Europe. We found that a highly heterogenous group of people – broadly irrespective of age, education, gender, place of residence, as well as political, economic, or social-cultural context – perceive agroforestry landscapes to be important to their quality of life. Respondents attributed multiple NCP to agroforestry landscapes, and non-material NCP are the most frequently assigned in all four countries. An absolute majority of respondents across all case studies considered relational values of agroforestry landscapes to be important for their quality of life with identity as the most often associated with agroforestry landscapes.

We discuss how relational values might be incorporated in policies and practices related to agroforestry landscapes in North-Eastern Europe.