Conclusions
Our study shows that the rapid change in land use in Uruguay from
grassland to plantations during the past 20 years has occurred, and this
has influenced in people's perceptions of landscape's potential to produce
ecosystem services. The ecosystem services of plantations that
caused the most discrepancy in the locals’ valuations compared to current
scientific evidence were biodiversity, water effects, and carbon cycling.
We found that in particular regulating and some provisioning
services are quite well recognized by substance specialists, but sometimes
quite unfamiliar to the lay public. In addition, a few studies have
been conducted on cultural ecosystem services, which are based on tradition
and mental models, and are often the most important ones for
the local people. These different paradigms may contribute to conflicts
in natural resource management and sustainable plantation forestry if
the three elements involved—scientific evidence, official regulations
and local public mental models—are divergent.
Special attention should be given in future studies to integrating
the meaning of ecosystem services with the local society. Previous
studies of the impact of forest transitions on ecosystem services have
given fairly comprehensive coverage to biophysical processes, although
wide geographical gaps still remain. In a country like Uruguay, where
the economic importance of forestry has increased rapidly and is
expected to continue doing so in the near future, the sustainable management
of ecosystem services is important for the future development
of plantations.
Supplementary materials related to this article can be found online
at doi:10.1016/j.forpol.2011.08.008.