Iconic manakins and despicable grackles: Comparing cultural ecosystem services and disservices across stakeholders in Costa Rica

Abstract

Despite the great cultural and economic benefits associated with birdwatching and other bird-related cultural ecosystem services (CES), little is known about the bird-related CES perceived by people, and how they differ across stakeholder groups and species. The goal of this study was to explore CES across three stakeholder groups in northwestern Costa Rica. We conducted surveys (n=404 total) in which we presented farmers (n=140), urbanites (n=149), and birdwatchers (n=115) with pictures and songs of bird species and collected participants' ratings on items designed to measure multiple CES. We found birdrelated CES were perceived as six different constructs: identity, bequest, education, birdwatching, acoustic aesthetic, and disservices. The three stakeholder groups varied across these constructs and across species. Specifically, birdwatchers ranked species higher in terms of their education scores and lower in disservices scores compared to the other two groups. Positive correlations across CES, and negative correlations with disservices, suggest that the affect heuristic (by which generalized positive or negative feelings sway judgements of risks and benefits) might be informing bird-related CES. Our approach represents a novel method for assessing CES that can be adapted and modified for different taxa and multiple geographical contexts.

The maturation of ecosystem services: Social and policy research expands, but whither biophysically informed valuation?

“…For this purpose, of helping people to truly understand the contributions of nature to their lives, we cannot expect a complete solution from the most space‐efficient representations of importance. Perhaps we need to focus more on stories (including the one that speaks for many—Slovic, Zionts, Woods, Goodman, & Jinks, 2011), quotes, images and videos that viscerally express value, and more directly engage audiences (Echeverri et al., 2020; Echeverri, Naidoo, Karp, Chan, & Zhao, 2019; Klain, Satterfield, Sinner, Ellis, & Chan, 2018). By this logic, constituents would only understand and reflect on the importance of nature by engaging directly with it, or engaging with it through another's eyes.…”

Can avian functional traits predict cultural ecosystem services?

“…the birds that people want to protect for future generations; Table ). The complete methodology is described by Echeverri, Naidoo, Karp, Chan, and Zhao ().…”

“…We modelled the five response variables separately: birdwatching, acoustic aesthetics, education, identity and disservices . We decided to exclude bequest , because there was very little variation in respondents' scores across species (see Echeverri, Naidoo, et al, ). We also conducted separate analyses for birdwatchers and non‐birdwatchers (i.e.…”

Urban Ecosystem Disservices in the Global South

“…Other UED in this impact category, include bird species that are considered noisy (Belaire et al 2015;Cox et al 2018;Echeverri et al 2019), pets or other animals making loud or unpleasant noises (Lyytimäki 2014;Jégh-Czinege et al 2020;McLellan and Shackleton 2019), the presence of bird and dog excrement (Belaire et al 2015;Delshammar et al 2015;Cox et al 2018;Lyytimäki 2017) or the dung from cattle and other livestock that are perceived as unpleasant or unsightly (Shackleton et al 2017). However, it is important to note that most studies that examined or mentioned UED impacting the aesthetic value of urban environments and UGI were concentrated in the Global North; only a few studies have been conducted in the Global South.…”