Characteristics of cultural ecosystem service management: local scale management yields large-scale benefits

Abstract

Cultural ecosystem services (CES) substantially contribute to human wellbeing as nonmaterial benefits of ecosystems. However, they remain poorly understood due to their often nonmarket and intangible nature. Through electronic surveys with coastal resource managers in Hawaii, the management characteristics of coastal and watershed-based CES in contrast to provisional and regulatory services were analyzed. The results indicate that although CES are a high management priority, only 10.0% of respondents could articulate specific policies currently in place. Additionally, most CES were managed for security, and were largely managed by local, county or state non-governmental organizations. Telephone surveys further revealed that half of all CES managed were considered to benefit humans beyond the spatial scale in which management decisions were made. Understanding the management characteristics of CES is expected to provide a framework for the development of CES that can be used to monitor, assess, and develop effective natural resource policies.