Understanding trade-offs between nature conservation and benefits to people: Applying an ecosystem service justice framework to the Circeo National Park, Italy

Protected areas are key instruments for conserving biodiversity and landscapes. Additionally, protected areas are essential to people’s well-being, not least by maintaining communities’ livelihoods. Yet, conservation initiatives are still often struggling to accommodate people’s needs, provoking conflict and opposition. In this study, we apply a combined approach of environmental justice and ecosystem services to provide critical understanding of ecosystem services traded off with conservation policies. Moreover, we tried to identify different stakeholders’ objectives and highlight pathways of conflict resolution. Our study focused on the Circeo National Park in Italy. By means of a survey (n=375) and a policy analysis we examined the procedures related to the governance of ecosystem services; we explored the distribution of ecosystem services benefits across different social groups; and we assessed the consideration of ES values held by different social groups. Although the ecosystem services concept was mentioned in some objectives of the park, the conservation strategies did not deeply consider of the actual people needs and benefits. Our results highlighted a top down approach in the protected area, with a general tendency to exclude local communities in the decision-making process. The exception was the park plan, supported by a participatory planning that involved administrators and citizens. However, only 12,33% of respondents participated in the meetings for the park plan design and 64% was not aware of these initiatives. Perceptions regarding the value of ecosystem services differed among survey respondents, depending on their age, area of residence, and business activities. This allowed us to recognise which social groups were more disadvantaged by the protection regime. We conclude that a justice lens added to the ecosystem services approach can provide useful insights to consider trade-offs, which may increase social support for conservation.