Analysis of the social perception of ecosystem services on a peri-urban communal forest from northwestern Spain: a social-ecological approach

Abstract

This PhD Thesis analyses the social perception of the ecosystem services provided by the peri-urban Xalo communal forests (NW Spain) by using a multidisciplinary socio-cultural approach with a gender perspective. It contains three original research works that develop an increasing gradient of stakeholder participationfrom observation, through consultation to engagement. The results obtained underline the critical importance of the non-material benefits that communal forests provide to society. This research demonstrates that the socio-cultural assessment of the actual demand for ecosystem services provides key information to local communities and political actors in the context of reinvention that many communal forest communities are heading nowadays.