Using Ecosystem Services in Community-Based Landscape Planning: Science is Not Ready to Deliver - Landscape Ecology for Sustainable Environment and Culture - page 81

non-linear, the existence of thresholds is obvious. A well-known example is that
species diversity increases steeply with ecosystem area until a certain threshold is
reached, after which the curve levels off. Such a relationship is very relevant to
decision making about whether an intervention in the landscape results in added
value. In our example, if the aim is to increase the level of biodiversity, inter-
ventions in the landscape are most cost-effective below the threshold. Above the
threshold, investments create less added value from the perspective of species
number, but may be necessary from another point of view, for example to create
conditions for the long-term persistence of a particular species that the community
gives high priority. The threshold is a fact, but what it means to action depends on
the local aspiration levels, trade-offs with other services etc. As Rockström et al.
( 2009 ) stated it: ''although current scientific understanding underpins the analysis
of the existence, location and nature of thresholds, normative judgements influence
the definition and the position of planetary boundaries''.
Literature contains some promising attempts to include both physical and social
system components. For example, Mendoza and Prahbu ( 2000 ) proposed 6 prin-
ciples to apply in forest management: (1) Policy, planning and institutional
framework are conducive to sustainable forest management; (2) Ecosystem
integrity must be maintained; (3) Forest management maintains or enhances fair
intergenerational access to resources and economic benefit; (4) The stakeholders
concerned have an acknowledged right to co-manage forest equitability and the
means to do this; (5) The health of the forest actors, cultures and the forest is
acceptable to all stakeholders; (6) The yield and quality of forest goods and ser-
vices are sustainable. Papaik et al. ( 2008 ) reduce this set to three general princi-
ples: (1) take long-term processes in the forest system (''system inertia'') into
account, (2) consider local and broader scale perspectives concomitantly, and (3)
empower local stakeholders. The principles are derived from two principles of
democracy: intra-generational equity and intergenerational equity, and combined
with scale levels, and the concept of weak and strong sustainability. I strongly
agree with Potschin and Haines-Young ( 2012 ) advocating that ecosystem services
have to be considered in the context of ''place''. An alternative set of principles
was proposed by Musacchio ( 2009 ) which she has called the six e's of sustainable
landscape design: Economy, Environment, Equity, Aesthetics, Ethics and Expe-
rience. The last three e's can be seen as referring to the social aspects of the
human-landscape relationship, which can be expressed as social value, parallel to
economic and environmental values.
Building on these attempts, and from a perspective of community-based plan-
ning for landscape services, I suggest 6 principles for sustainable landscape change.
1. The landscape is a service providing system. The landscape is a physical system
resulting from the interplay between the natural and socio-economic processes:
humans use landscape resources for their benefit. This principle defines the
landscape concept based on the nature-human relationship, which is central in
sustainability thinking. Because the landscape is spatially heterogeneous, the
provision of landscape services varies across the landscape mosaic.