ECOPOTENTIAL: Improving Future Ecosystem Benefits through Earth Observations

Life cycle and habitat, erosion prevention and flood control were the most important regulating services. Water treatment and pollination were the next most valued with carbon sequestration and pest and disease control being the lowest valued. In terms of provisioning, freshwater - as might be expected in arid/semi-arid regions - was the most highly valued provisioning service followed by agriculture (both grain and meat based) and then energy production and wild non-meat and meat products. Again, there was much individual variation and given the sample size of five, more specific trends are difficult to determine. Additionally whether a service was individually valuable or more broadly was also difficult to determine with only five Protected Areas in the analysis.

There was considerable variation in how each Protected Area ranked the pressures facing them. Given that there were only five respondents, however, no conclusive statements can be made on trends. What are the important ecosystem services? The importance of various ecosystem services in arid and semi-arid ecosystem Protected Areas is shown in Figure 6. Overall, respondents indicated cultural ecosystem services as the most important ecosystem services, followed by regulating services and then provisioning services. This was similar to the responses provided by the Protected Areas in the mountain ecosystems and the coastal and marine ecosystems. Within cultural ecosystem services, recreation/tourism, aesthetics and research, followed by education, were the most important, with spiritual significance being of the lowest value by a fair margin.

P r e s s u r e s o n a r i d p r o t e c t e d a r e a s Pe r c e p t i o n s o f r e s p o n d e n t s

Pressures Protected Areas

Har HaNegev National Park

Samaria National Park Alta Murgia

Montado

Kruger National Park

Pressure Level high medium low none

agriculture

climate change

forestry

tourism

landscape fragmentation

invasive species

resource extraction

transport

pollution

fishing

hunting

eutrophication

Figure 6 : Perceived Pressures on Protected Area Arid and Semi-Arid Ecosystems

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