Christopher B. Anderson

Rice cultivation is highly water-intensive and alters both ecosystems and rural livelihoods. This study evaluates the willingness to contribute (WTC), measured in hours of volunteer labor, to restore ecosystem services in the Tocaría River (Casanare, Colombia), which has been affected by extensive rice cultivation. We surveyed 107 rural residents using a choice experiment with a labor-based payment vehicle and estimated preferences with a mixed logit model. Respondents expressed strong support for restoration, with WTCs of 17 hours/month for improving water quality, 11.7 hours/month for water availability, and 14.4 hours/month for expanding riparian vegetation. Crucially, participants preferred that civil society organizations manage restoration efforts, rather than government agencies or agribusiness. Additionally, based on the cost of paying the equivalent of this labor, the monthly economic loss caused by the degradation of the Tocaría River’s ecosystem services was estimated at $84,510 USD. These findings highlight rural communities’ willingness to actively engage in river restoration, offering labor as payment, and underscore the importance of participatory institutional arrangements in future watershed governance.

More inclusive conservation approaches are needed to achieve the dual goals of justice and sustainability. This imperative requires developing new strategies to adapt extant models like conservation-based tourism in protected areas to incorporate more plural perspectives. We studied guided tours in Tierra del Fuego National Park, Argentina to assess how nature and people-nature relationships were (re)produced. Specifically, we used ethnographic methods (participant observations, interviews, document/media analyses) with the bricolage analytical concept of ‘placing social imaginaries’ to evaluate the ways that materialities, practices, meanings, and institutions interact in the visitation experience. We delimited three dynamic areas of tension evident in the data: (i) remoteness - connectivity, (ii) modernity - postmodernity, and (iii) singular nature - plural people-nature relationships. By analyzing how multiple social imaginaries converge and reproduce different people-nature relationships in touristic experiences, we obtained insights into how a ‘natural’ protected area is conceived, valued, and co-constructed as a dynamic social-ecological system in a specific space-time (i.e. place). We argue that being more intentional and reflexive about the ‘placing of social imaginaries’ can foster more inclusive approaches to conservation-based tourism.

Environmental management requires understanding nature's multiple values, but capturing diverse perspectives can be challenging. Social media provide user-generated data that complement traditional approaches. Using Google Maps and YouTube, we conducted a sociocultural valuation of freshwater ecosystems in Argentina's Tucumán province. We assessed 1,338 images from 54 sites to determine (i) depiction of ecosystems and socio-environmental problems; (ii) users' age profile, uses, and activities in these spaces; (iii) portrayal of nature's contributions to people (NCP) and associated values; and (iv) geographic distribution NCP and values and related accessibility of sites. Most images depicted rivers and waterfalls (88% of images; 89% of sites), primarily in the Yungas ecoregion (99% of images; 94% of sites). Half of images (50%) and 87% of sites showed freshwater ecosystems with human uses and activities, mostly in the context of passive leisure (72% of images; 63% of sites). Activities that physically engaged with nature were less frequent and included fishing (7%), trekking (6%), kayaking (5%), and cycling (2%). Consequently, non-material NCP—especially aesthetic and naturalistic values—dominated the representations (97% of images; 98% of sites). Negative values were uncommon (1% of images; 28% of sites), mostly associated with the Plain regions. Finally, spatial trends were not a function of nearness to roads and population centers, as the Yungas ecoregion was clearly more depicted in social media, despite being less accessible. These findings enhance understanding of people-nature relationships in aquatic ecosystems and can inform monitoring strategies based on relational values, which complements mainstream foci on intrinsic and instrumental values.

D ifferent worldviews shape how humans perceive, understand, inhabit, and value the world. Major efforts to achieve more inclusive conservation, such as the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, seek to more fully reflect diverse worldviews in science, policy, and practice. Building on the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Values Assessment ’s comprehensive review of academic publications, Indigenous and local knowledge sources, and policy documents, we characterize 4 human–nature worldviews: anthropocentrism, biocentrism, ecocentrism, and pluricentrism. This heuristic typology can help conservation scholars and practitioners navigate participatory decision‐making by providing conceptual clarity to distinguish particular worldviews and the fuzzy boundaries between them, and by addressing practical issues, particularly discursive and structural power dynamics, that affect worldview expression. Two case studies, protected area prioritization in India and payments for ecosystem services in Colombia, show that inclusive conservation depends on strategies and abilities to recognize and understand diverse worldviews and to articulate them in institutions. These examples highlight that engaging diverse human–nature worldviews applies not only to developing new policies but also to adapting mainstream instruments.

Summary: The elusive southern river otter (Lontra provocax; huillín in Spanish) is critically endangered in the Argentine portion of Tierra del Fuego, and low social awareness may be one of the major threats to its conservation. Our survey of local residents’ knowledge and valuation of the huillín showed that only 14% recognized photographs of the species, almost half did not know that it is endangered and most erroneously thought it was an introduced species. Greater knowledge about the huillín was related to higher respondent education levels. Younger and more knowledgeable residents valued the species more for ecological and relational reasons; its instrumental value was considered least important. More communication should be targeted at older people and groups not directly interacting with nature via informal education methods, including combining positive messages about the huillín and other native species with ongoing outreach efforts warning about biological invasions. Understanding perceptions and valuations of biodiversity can make conservation efforts more effective and inclusive.

Scientists and managers seek to implement more inclusive and effective conservation strategies by incorporating plural valuations of nature and nature’s contributions to people (NCP) into research and decision-making. For Argentina’s threatened Espinal ecoregion, this need is particularly acute. In Entre Ríos province, practically all of these forests are devoted to production, and the expanding agricultural frontier increases their conversion to crops. We surveyed family ranchers and agricultural/environmental specialists, two key stakeholders for managing Espinal forests used for cattle grazing. Employing a sociocultural valuation, we determined i) stakeholder recognition of the Espinal’s NCP and its support for quality of life, ii) similarity between stakeholder valuations (importance: 0 = none; 4 = very) of NCP and dimensions of well-being derived from the Espinal, and iii) relationship between ecological (e.g., forest degradation) and social (e.g., place of residence) factors and perceptions of the forest. Ranchers recognized more NCP and quality-of-life aspects, and the importance to their well-being tended to be greater than specialists. Both groups valued regulating and non-material NCP above material contributions and considered that forests are very important for physical and mental health. Finally, only rancher perceptions varied with tested variables, depending on degradation levels of forests with which they have the most contact and/or carry out their activities, the number of uses and recreational activities they carry out in forests, their knowledge of forests, and their place of residence. This study illustrates common ground upon which to promote synergies between production and conservation in Espinal-cattle agroecosystems.