People and nature in the Fuerteventura Biosphere Reserve (Canary Islands): socio-ecological relationships under climate change

Abstract

SUMMARYThis paper analyses the interdependence between environment and society in terms of socio-ecological webs, in which human and biophysical systems are linked. A quantitative model, based on canonical correlation analysis applied in Fuerteventura Island (Canary Archipelago), detected indicators of human–landscape relationships and predicted potential shifts based on simulated environmental changes. In the last few decades, the landscape of Fuerteventura Island has changed: natural components and cultural agrarian uses have decreased, while the population has increased due to immigration, mainly from mainland Spain and other European countries. The island shows a transition from a coupled local socio-ecosystem to one based on the interaction between environment and coastal tourism that decouples native inhabitants from the landscape and traditional land-use practices. As vulnerability and adaptation to climate change represent critical sets of potential interactions in Canary Islands, a model and a map of the socio-ecological system under four Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scenarios show rural decoupling through ‘deagrarianization’ and ‘deruralization’, as well as stronger links to the tourism system.

Designing Protected Areas for Social–Ecological Sustainability: Effectiveness of Management Guidelines for Preserving Cultural Landscapes

“…Thus, the overlapped area is regulated by both the management categories of national and regional parks, which differ in their protection status and the administration in charge, as well as in the elapsed time since their declaration and establishment. The conservation objectives of both PAs intend to protect the biodiversity and ecological processes that are maintained by a highly threatened, traditional, silvicultural landscape, although, according to previous studies, these goals are not being fully achieved [44,45,48,49].…”

What do We Talk about When We Talk about Social-Ecological Systems? A Literature Review

“…Some applications include the role of social networks in natural resource management [47], the spatial organization of biological populations in fragmented landscapes [48], scale mismatches, and the value of social networks [49] and networks that consider ecological sites, which are interconnected by a mobile livelihood strategy, such as transhumant pastoralism [5]. Canonical correspondence analyses are also promising tools for jointly analyzing social and ecological structures, such as land cover, landscape configuration, and the socioeconomic characteristics of populations [7,50]. In a complementary fashion, it is important to develop a conceptual discussion among disciplines involved in the study of SES.…”

“…Hence, there is a need to expand the boundaries of the studied systems. These modifications mean shifting the object of study towards social-ecological systems [5][6][7].…”

What Do We Talk about When We Talk about Social-Ecological Systems? A Literature Review

“…Some applications include the role of social networks in natural resource management [45], the spatial organization of biological populations in fragmented landscapes [46], scale mismatches and the value of social networks [47] and networks which consider ecological sites that are interconnected by a mobile livelihood strategy such as transhumant pastoralism [48]. Canonical correspondence analyses are also a promising tool to jointly analyze social and ecological structures [49,50]. In a complementary fashion it is important to develop a conceptual discussion among disciplines involved in SES study.…”