Unexploited opportunities in understanding liveable and biodiverse cities. A review on urban biodiversity perception and valuation

Many researchers and policymakers from various disciplines highlight the role of urban biodiversity in delivering ecosystem services to enhance human wellbeing in a rapidly urbanising world. This suggests powerful synergies between approaches that are often disciplinarily separated, aiming either at human wellbeing or biodiversity conservation. Strategies towards liveable and biodiverse cities would gain support from insights into the people-biodiversity interface in cities. Yet, the question of which scale of biodiversity (from ecosystems to genes) benefits urban people in general and different socio-cultural groups in particular, remains largely open. To assess the current scientific knowledge as well as potential for further research, we systematically reviewed literature on people’s perception and valuation of urban biodiversity (200 studies). We also quantified the outcomes of studies in terms of the effects of biodiversity on valuation for studies that addressed biodiversity valuation below the ecosystem scale. We found that the current literature is critically biased in four ways. (1) Most studies cover temperate climates, while regions with the most pronounced urban growth are underrepresented. (2) Studies focus on urban forests and parks while important informal greenspaces are largely neglected. (3) Biodiversity is mostly addressed at the ecosystem scale (habitat or land-use types) while diversity at the species community or gene scale—key issues in biodiversity conservation—is covered to a much lesser extent. Most studies below the ecosystem scale show positive biodiversity effects, but universal patterns are not apparent due to the scarcity and low comparability of research. (4) Almost no studies consider the cultural diversity of urban residents by systematically targeting people from different socio-economic and cultural backgrounds or specific age groups. Our review reveals critical knowledge gaps about the people-biodiversity interface in cities, both in approaching cultural and biological diversity (‘biocultural diversity’). This shows unexploited opportunities and future directions in linking usually separated strategies on enhancing human wellbeing and biodiversity conservation in sustainable cities.     

北京上海近20 a城市化过程中 土地利用变化异同点探析

城市化进程下土地利用格局变化以及驱动力分析是当前国内学者研究的热点。本文利用C5决策树分类方法分别提取北京、上海1990s以来的三期遥感影像分类图,揭示两市城市用地格局变化的空间规律及其异同点。结果表明：过去的20 a来北京地区以北京市辖区为中心呈现低密度式蔓延扩张;上海城市用地呈“单中心、多卫星城”同时扩张,并且东部沿江地区发展速度较快。将研究区按扩张程度分为：高度扩张区、中度扩张区、低度扩张区。从空间上看,上海城市用地扩张比北京明显,在扩张的过程中占用了大量耕地,上海地区尤为明显。同时,人口增长、产业结构调整等是城市化进程中土地利用变化的主要驱动力因子,需要将来更多的相关研究。     

Urban green commons: Insights on urban common property systems

The aim of this paper is to shed new light on urban common property systems. We deal with urban commons in relation to urban green-space management, referring to them as urban green commons. Applying a property-rights analytic perspective, we synthesize information on urban green commons from three case-study regions in Sweden, Germany, and South Africa, and elaborate on their role for biodiversity conservation in urban settings, with a focus on business sites. Cases cover both formally established types of urban green commons and bottom-up emerged community-managed habitats. As our review demonstrates, the right to actively manage urban green space is a key characteristic of urban green commons whether ownership to land is in the private, public, the club realm domain, or constitutes a hybrid of these. We discuss the important linkages among urban common property systems, social–ecological learning, and management of ecosystem services and biodiversity. Several benefits can be associated with urban green commons, such as a reduction of costs for ecosystem management and as designs for reconnecting city-inhabitants to the biosphere. The emergence of urban green commons appears closely linked to dealing with societal crises and for reorganizing cities; hence, they play a key role in transforming cities toward more socially and ecologically benign environments. While a range of political questions circumscribe the feasibility of urban green commons, we discuss their usefulness in management of different types of urban habitats, their political justification and limitation, their potential for improved biodiversity conservation, and conditions for their emergence. We conclude by postulating some general policy advice.     

Socio-economic and climatic changes lead to contrasting global urban vegetation trends

Urban greening can enhance quality of life by generating ecosystem services and has been proposed as a way of mitigating adverse consequences of global warming for human health. However, there is limited knowledge on global trends in urban vegetation and their relation to economic development and climate change. Here we studied 1,688 major cities worldwide and show that 70% (1,181) show an increase in vegetation derived from satellite observations (2000–2018). For 68% (1,138) of the cities studied, the increase in the urban vegetation is less strong as compared to the vegetation increase found in the surroundings of these cities. Overall, positive vegetation trends are widely observed in cities in Europe and North America, whereas negative vegetation trends in cities occur primarily in Africa, South America and Asia. Gross Domestic Product growth, population growth as well as temperature are found to be the main underlying drivers of the observed contrasts in changes in urban vegetation as compared to surrounding areas across continents. From a global synthesis of urban vegetation change, we quantify the role of social-economic development and climate change in regulating urban vegetation growth, and the contrasting imprint on cities of developed and developing countries.     

Mapping the diversity of regulating ecosystem services in European cities

This paper presents the first analysis of the diversity of regulating ecosystem services (ESS)—key variables for global environmental sustainability and change in an urban era—across a globally important part of the urban world, urban Europe. We map the first pan-European pattern of regulating ecosystem services in urban core areas and their associated hinterlands and discuss data against the background of each city's land-use development history and planning culture. Upon selecting more than 300 cities, we used the Urban Atlas database and a straightforward calculation method to map three regulating ecosystem services. The main results of this study show (a) a heterogeneous distribution of regulating ecosystem services across European cities, (b) considerable provisioning differences between core cities and the hinterland, (c) a grouping of European regions according to their potential for urban ecosystem service provisioning and (d) an ecosystem services supply ranking for European cities. Considerable differences in urban ecosystem services were found among northern countries, such as Sweden and Finland, which are rich in supplying ecosystem services compared to the UK and Belgium, which, similar to Spanish and Greek cities, are characteristically low in ecosystem services provision. Our results provide the first overall picture of regulating services in urban EU-Europe and serve to inform decisions on the key aspects of future European policy and strategies involving urban nature, green spaces and health.     

Divergent trends in ecosystem services under different climate-management futures in a fire-prone forest landscape

While ecosystem services and climate change are often examined independently, quantitative assessments integrating these fields are needed to inform future land management decisions. Using climate-informed state-and-transition simulations, we examined projected trends and tradeoffs for a suite of ecosystem services under four climate change scenarios and two management scenarios (active management emphasizing fuel treatments and no management other than fire suppression) in a fire-prone landscape of dry and moist mixed-conifer forests in central Oregon, USA. Focal ecosystem services included fire potential (regulating service), timber volume (provisioning service), and potential wildlife habitat (supporting service). Projections without climate change suggested active management in dry mixed-conifer forests would create more open forest structures, reduce crown fire potential, and maintain timber stocks, while in moist mixed-conifer forests, active management would reduce crown fire potential but at the expense of timber stocks. When climate change was considered, however, trends in most ecosystem services changed substantially, with large increases in wildfire area predominating broad-scale trends in outputs, regardless of management approach (e.g., strong declines in timber stocks and habitat for closed-forest wildlife species). Active management still had an influence under a changing climate, but as a moderator of the strong climate-driven trends rather than being a principal driver of ecosystem service outputs. These results suggest projections of future ecosystem services that do not consider climate change may result in unrealistic expectations of benefits.     

Temperature response to future urbanization and climate change

This study examines the impact of future urban expansion on local near-surface temperature for Sydney (Australia) using a future climate scenario (A2). The Weather Research and Forecasting model was used to simulate the present (1990–2009) and future (2040–2059) climates of the region at 2-km spatial resolution. The standard land use of the model was replaced with a more accurate dataset that covers the Sydney area. The future simulation incorporates the projected changes in the urban area of Sydney to account for the expected urban expansion. A comparison between areas with projected land use changes and their surroundings was conducted to evaluate how urbanization and global warming will act together and to ascertain their combined effect on the local climate. The analysis of the temperature changes revealed that future urbanization will strongly affect minimum temperature, whereas little impact was detected for maximum temperature. The minimum temperature changes will be noticeable throughout the year. However, during winter and spring these differences will be particularly large and the increases could be double the increase due to global warming alone at 2050. Results indicated that the changes were mostly due to increased heat capacity of urban structures and reduced evaporation in the city environment.     

Regionalisation of population growth projections in coastal exposure analysis

Large-area coastal exposure and impact analysis has focussed on using sea-level rise (SLR) scenarios and has placed little emphasis on socioeconomic scenarios, while neglecting spatial variations of population dynamics. We use the Dynamic Interactive Vulnerability Assessment (DIVA) Framework to assess the population exposed to 1 in 100-year coastal flood events under different population scenarios, that are consistent with the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs); and different SLR scenarios, derived from the representative concentration pathways (RCPs); and analyse the effect of accounting for regionalised population dynamics on population exposure until 2100. In a reference approach, we use homogeneous population growth on national level. In the regionalisation approaches, we test existing spatially explicit projections that also account for urbanisation, coastal migration and urban sprawl. Our results show that projected global exposure in 2100 ranges from 100 million to 260 million, depending on the combination of SLR and population scenarios and method used for regionalising the population projections. The assessed exposure based on the regionalised approaches is higher than that derived from the reference approach by up to 60 million people (39%). Accounting for urbanisation and coastal migration leads to an increase in exposure, whereas considering urban sprawl leads to lower exposure. Differences between the reference and the regionalised approaches increase with higher SLR. The regionalised approaches show highest exposure under SSP5 over most of the twenty-first century, although total population in SSP5 is the second lowest overall. All methods project the largest absolute growth in exposure for Asia and relative growth for Africa.     

Demand for biodiversity protection and carbon storage as drivers of global land change scenarios

Many global land change scenarios are driven by demand for food, feed, fiber, and fuel. However, novel demands for other ecosystem services give rise to nexus issues and can lead to different land system changes. In this paper we explore the effects of including multiple different demands in land change scenarios. Our reference scenario is driven by demands for crop production, ruminant livestock production, and provisioning of built-up area. We then compare two alternative scenarios with additional demands for terrestrial carbon storage and biodiversity protection, respectively. These scenarios represent possible implementations of globally agreed policy targets. The simulated land system change scenarios are compared in terms of changes in cropland intensity and area, as well as tree and grassland area changes. We find that the carbon and biodiversity scenarios generally result in greater intensification and less expansion of cropland, with the biodiversity scenario showing a stronger intensification effect. However, the impact of setting the targets impacts different world regions in different ways. Overall, both scenarios result in a larger tree area compared to the reference scenario, while the carbon scenario also yields more grassland area. The land systems simulated while accounting for these additional demand types show strong patterns of specialization and spatial segregation in the provisioning of goods and services in different world regions. Our results indicate the relevance of including demands for multiple different goods and services in global land change assessments.     

Regime shifts limit the predictability of land-system change

Payment schemes for ecosystem services such as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) rely on the prediction of ‘business-as-usual’ scenarios to ensure that emission reductions from carbon credits are additional. However, land systems often undergo periods of nonlinear and abrupt change that invalidate predictions calibrated on past trends. Rapid land-system change can occur when critical thresholds in broad-scale underlying drivers such as commodity prices and climate conditions are crossed or when sudden events such as political change or natural disasters punctuate long-term equilibria. As a result, land systems can shift to new regimes with markedly different economic and ecological characteristics. Anticipating the timing and nature of regime shifts of land systems is extremely challenging, as we demonstrate through empirical case studies in four countries in Southeast Asia (China, Laos, Vietnam and Indonesia). The results show how sudden events and gradual changes in underlying drivers caused rapid, surprising and widespread land-system changes, including shifts to different regimes in China, Vietnam and Indonesia, whereas land systems in Laos remained stable in the study period but show recent signs of rapid change. The observed regime shifts were difficult to anticipate, which compromises the validity of predictions of future land-system changes and the assessment of their impact on greenhouse gas emissions, hydrological processes, agriculture, biodiversity and livelihoods. This implies that long-term initiatives such as REDD must account for the substantial uncertainties inherent in future predictions of land-system change. Learning from past regime shifts and identifying early warning signs for future regime shifts are important challenges for land-system science.     

Global social and environmental change drives the management and delivery of ecosystem services from urban gardens: A case study from Central Coast,California

Urban community gardens are vital green spaces threatened by global social and environmental change factors. Population growth has reduced the amount of space available in cities, and climate change challenges plant growth thresholds. Urban community gardens provide dynamic socio-ecological systems to study how such social and environmental change factors affect the management and delivery of ecosystem services. They provide spaces where urban citizens purposefully interact with nature and receive multiple benefits. In this paper, we synthesize the results of three years of research in a case study of urban community gardens across the Central Coast of California and present a framework showing how both social and environmental change factors at the regional scale affect the ecological make-up of urban community gardens, which in turn affect the ecosystem services coming from such systems. Our study reveals that global environmental change felt at the regional level (e.g., increased built environment, climate change) interact with social change and policy (e.g., population growth, urbanization, water use policy), thus affecting regulations over garden resources (e.g., water availability) and management decisions by gardeners (e.g., soil management, crop planting decisions). These management decisions at the plot-scale, determine the ecological complexity and quality of the gardens and affect the resulting ecosystem services that come from these systems, such as food provision for both humans and urban animals. A greater understanding of how environmental and social change factors drive the management processes of urban community gardens is necessary to design policy support systems that encourage the continued use and benefits arising from such green spaces. Policies that can support urban community gardens to maintain ecological complexity and increase biodiversity through active management of soil quality and plant diversity have the potential to increase social and environmental outcomes that feedback to the larger environmental and social system.     

Land-use and sustainability under intersecting global change and domestic policy scenarios: Trajectories for Australia to 2050

Understanding potential future influence of environmental, economic, and social drivers on land-use and sustainability is critical for guiding strategic decisions that can help nations adapt to change, anticipate opportunities, and cope with surprises. Using the Land-Use Trade-Offs (LUTO) model, we undertook a comprehensive, detailed, integrated, and quantitative scenario analysis of land-use and sustainability for Australia’s agricultural land from 2013–2050, under interacting global change and domestic policies, and considering key uncertainties. We assessed land use competition between multiple land-uses and assessed the sustainability of economic returns and ecosystem services at high spatial (1.1 km grid cells) and temporal (annual) resolution. We found substantial potential for land-use transition from agriculture to carbon plantings, environmental plantings, and biofuels cropping under certain scenarios, with impacts on the sustainability of economic returns and ecosystem services including food/fibre production, emissions abatement, water resource use, biodiversity services, and energy production. However, the type, magnitude, timing, and location of land-use responses and their impacts were highly dependent on scenario parameter assumptions including global outlook and emissions abatement effort, domestic land-use policy settings, land-use change adoption behaviour, productivity growth, and capacity constraints. With strong global abatement incentives complemented by biodiversity-focussed domestic land-use policy, land-use responses can substantially increase and diversify economic returns to land and produce a much wider range of ecosystem services such as emissions abatement, biodiversity, and energy, without major impacts on agricultural production. However, better governance is needed for managing potentially significant water resource impacts. The results have wide-ranging implications for land-use and sustainability policy and governance at global and domestic scales and can inform strategic thinking and decision-making about land-use and sustainability in Australia. A comprehensive and freely available 26 GB data pack (http://doi.org/10.4225/08/5604A2E8A00CC) provides a unique resource for further research. As similarly nuanced transformational change is also possible elsewhere, our template for comprehensive, integrated, quantitative, and high resolution scenario analysis can support other nations in strategic thinking and decision-making to prepare for an uncertain future.     

Assessment of the management of organizations supplying ecosystem services from tropical forests

Global environmental change leads to degradation of tropical forests in many countries. In response to this pressure, programs for payments for ecosystem services (PES) are developing and organizations are emerging which manage forests in order to supply ecosystem services, rather than only harvest timber. Typically such services are carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, pollination, and watershed protection. Public or private actors interested to invest in or donate money for the provisioning of such services are faced with the problem of choosing the appropriate organization supplying ecosystem services. The goal of this paper was to develop an assessment framework based on the balanced scorecard concept including drivers, impact, performance and context variables. Results of a survey of international market actors were used to determine assessment criteria and their weights. Putting the focus of this paper on drivers and impacts, we assessed Latin American organizations that “sell” ecosystem services from tropical forests in terms of their general management, marketing, forest management, client and stakeholder satisfaction, and forest ecosystem status. We found that supplying organizations vary widely with respect to their achievements in these areas. However, the variance of assessment results is influenced even more by the variance in weights the international market actors allocate to the assessment criteria. The insights of this study can contribute to the continuous improvement of management processes in supplying organizations and can support investors and donors in their decision-making with respect to organization supplying ecosystem services.     

Negotiating Indigenous benefits from payment for ecosystem service (PES) schemes

This paper draws on research conducted with Aboriginal land managers across Northern Australia to show how and why payments for ecosystem service (PES) schemes should be framed around Indigenous rights to and relationships with their traditional estates. PES schemes offer opportunities to recognize and support Aboriginal communities' land and sea management knowledge and practices, and there is strong evidence that Indigenous communities are seeking to engage with such schemes. We focus on Aboriginal savanna landscape management, particularly traditional burning practices, to extend the ecosystem services framework to recognize Indigenous values and interactions with their lands as a critical service for Indigenous well-being. Drawing on case-study analysis of PES projects negotiated to support Aboriginal fire management programs across Northern Australia, we show how cultural ecosystem services can be applied to represent the active, dynamic and often interdependent relationships inherent in Indigenous human-environment relationships.     

Detection of changes in streamflow and floods resulting from climate fluctuations and land use-drainage changes

Detection of effects of changing climate on the hydrologic responses of rivers can be further complicated by changes in land use, drainage, and water use. To discern effects of human-caused changes in a basin and those due to precipitation over time, a comparison was made of annual mean flows and peakflows in Midwestern basins that experienced increases in annual precipitation and heavy rain events during 1940–1990. Two pairs of basins, one pair in a rural area and one pair in an urbanized area, were selected for in-pair comparisons, with one basin in each pair experiencing more land use and drainage changes during 1940–1990 than the other basin. All basins experienced significant upward trends in annual precipitation and annual mean flows. Human-produced changes affecting runoff in both rural basins accounted for about two-thirds of the fluctuations in the mean flows, and precipitation changes accounted for the other third. However, much of the change in peakflows in the rural basin undergoing sizable changes in drainage was due to these changes (85%) versus 75% in the rural basin without comparable shifts in drainage. The mean and peak flows of the two urban basins showed considerably more response to precipitation shifts than those of the two rural basins. The urbanized area doubled within one urban basin during 1940–1990, and these land use changes explained much more of the increase in mean flows and peakflows there than in the urban basin with less change in land use. By 1990 precipitation accounted for 69% of the upward trend in mean flows since 1941 in the heavily developed urban basin, as compared to 37% of the trend in the less settled urban basin. For purposes of assessing climate change, the precipitation changes over fifty years in all basins produced marked uptrends in basin streamflow, but the magnitude of the precipitation effect was masked by the land use and drainage changes. The results illustrate the need for careful analysis of natural basin characteristics (soils and basin shape), land use and drainage changes, and of various precipitation conditions if the influence of shifting precipitation on hydrologic conditions is to be detected, accurately measured, and correctly interpreted. For such studies the paired basin comparison techniques appears to be a valuable approach.     

基于卫星数据提取南宁城市扩张信息及驱动力研究分析

利用Landsat-TM陆地卫星数据进行南宁城市扩展及其土地利用动态变化的研究(1990年9月16日TM图像和2000年12月24日ETM 图像).通过统计及相关分析选取合适波段;取南宁市2时相TM和ETM 的NDVI差值,采用TM和ETM 遥感图像对研究区进行土地分类,研究南宁市土地利用变化状况,分析各类土地利用面积动态变化矩阵.结果表明:10a间南宁城镇范围向其周围呈辐射状迅速扩大,且向各方向扩展的程度基本接近;最大的地物转换类型是旱地转化为城市交通用地,为27.62%,其次为城镇用地及交通用地的转换;并讨论了城市化与降水之间的可能关系城市扩展,道路面积增加可能导致城市降水减少.分析了城市扩展的驱动力,包括了人口增长,经济迅速发展,发展旅游以及交通建设等都是主要因素.     

Temperature projection in a tropical city using remote sensing and dynamic modeling

Recent temperature projections for urban areas have only been able to reflect the expected change due to greenhouse-induced warming, with little attempt to predict urbanisation effects. This research examines temperature changes due to both global warming and urbanisation independently and applies them differentially to urban and rural areas over a sub-tropical city, Hong Kong. The effect of global warming on temperature is estimated by regressing IPCC data from eight Global Climate Models against the background temperature recorded at a rural climate station. Results suggest a mean background temperature increase of 0.67 °C by 2039. To model temperature changes for different degrees of urbanization, long-term temperature records along with a measureable urbanisation parameter, plot ratio surrounding different automatic weather stations (AWS) were used. Models representing daytime and nighttime respectively were developed, and a logarithmic relationship between the rate of temperature change and plot ratio (degree of urbanisation) is observed. Baseline air temperature patterns over Hong Kong for 2009 were derived from two ASTER thermal satellite images, for summer daytime and nighttime respectively. Dynamic raster modeling was employed to project temperatures to 2039 in 10-year intervals on a per-pixel basis according to the degree of urbanization predicted. Daytime and nighttime temperatures in the highly urbanized areas are expected to rise by ca. 2 °C by 2039. Validation by projecting observed temperature trends at AWS, gave low average RMS errors of 0.19 °C for daytime and 0.14 °C for nighttime, and suggests the reliability of the method.     

Outstanding challenges for urban conservation research and action

Researchers, advocates and policymakers have proposed urban conservation as an emerging, integrative discipline that can contribute to sustainable cities by delivering co-benefits to human and non-human components of biodiversity. Given the recent growth in biodiversity-friendly designs and management schemes, there is an urgent need for a synthesis of this fragmented research base to inform planners and decision-makers. We conducted a systematic multidisciplinary literature review (787 papers) and found that the importance of urban areas for general conservation is not convincingly supported by empirical research. Only few studies demonstrated that cities can directly contribute to conservation efforts, by hosting viable populations of rare or endangered species, or by providing green corridors for the passage of natural populations. From a social perspective, while several studies demonstrated that green infrastructure could provide services for people (notably cultural services), only few studies explored the role of species diversity per se. Our review also shows strong geographical, location and taxonomic biases in urban biodiversity conservation research that make generalisations difficult. It is a disturbing paradox that while research in urban biodiversity conservation is rising exponentially, the main motivations for conserving urban biodiversity remain largely untested and unproven. We thus propose a framework for promoting integrative urban conservation research to bridge those gaps. Together, these findings warn against expanding cities under green planning and call for enhancing biodiversity experience by improving the quality of existing green spaces throughout the entire urban matrix. We provide a set of recommendations for practitioners and decision-makers to continue action.     

Mapping and modelling trade-offs and synergies between grazing intensity and ecosystem services in rangelands using global-scale datasets and models

Vast areas of rangelands across the world are grazed with increasing intensity, but interactions between livestock production, biodiversity and other ecosystem services are poorly studied. This study explicitly determines trade-offs and synergies between ecosystem services and livestock grazing intensity on rangelands. Grazing intensity and its effects on forage utilization by livestock, carbon sequestration, erosion prevention and biodiversity are quantified and mapped, using global datasets and models. Results show that on average 4% of the biomass produced annually is consumed by livestock. On average, erosion prevention is 10% lower in areas with a high grazing intensity compared to areas with a low grazing intensity, whereas carbon emissions are more than four times higher under high grazing intensity compared to low grazing intensity. Rangelands with the highest grazing intensity are located in the Sahel, Pakistan, West India, Middle East, North Africa and parts of Brazil. These high grazing intensities result in carbon emissions, low biodiversity values, low capacity for erosion prevention and unsustainable forage utilization. Although the applied models simplify the processes of ecosystem service supply, our study provides a global overview of the consequences of grazing for biodiversity and ecosystem services. The expected increasing future demand for livestock products likely increase pressures on rangelands. Global-scale models can help to identify targets and target areas for international policies aiming at sustainable future use of these rangelands.     

A social contract with the ancestors—Culture and ecosystem services in southern Madagascar

We investigate the role of culture in sustaining essential ecosystem services in the arid and erratic climate of an agropastoral landscape in southern Madagascar. Our fieldwork and interviews in Ambovombe subprefecture in Androy addressed land use, agropastoralism, livelihood, institutions and their moral basis. Our analysis points to the interdependence of cultural practices and ecosystem services: sacred forests, crop pollination, subsistence farming, cattle economy and societal transition and purification rituals. We posit a social-ancestral contract that works as a moral attractor structuring and sustaining the agropastoral ecosystem services system. The contract between living and nonliving clan members underpins the cultural practices and rituals that regulate the vulnerable agropastoral system. We conclude that the well-being values of the inhabitants of the south of Madagascar depend upon moralities that lend legitimacy and stability to the management of the social–ecological processes that precondition ecosystem services production. Neither ecosystem nor culture delivers ecosystem services to society. Ecosystem services are generated by an interdependent social–ecological system in which knowledge, practice, and beliefs coevolve: culture is a key factor in their generation and persistence. The study suggests these are significant interdependences to consider in dynamic analyses of ecosystem service production.