2018 / Tourism, Biodiversity, Equity and Access

Inequality in Access to Cultural Ecosystem Services From Protected Areas in the Chilean Biodiversity Hotspot

Citation

Martinez-Harms, M. J., Bryan, B. A., Wood, S. A., Fisher, D. M., Law, E., Rhodes, J. R., … & Wilson, K. A. (2018). Inequality in access to cultural ecosystem services from protected areas in the Chilean biodiversity hotspot. Science of the Total Environment, 636, 1128-1138. doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.04.353

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Spending time in protected areas provide important cultural ecosystem services that have the potential to strengthen pro-environmental attitudes and behavior. Knowing how easy it is for people to access protected areas, and what kinds of nature experiences they prefer, is important for finding ways to make access more equitable and for planning and managing parks in the future.

In this study, researchers looked at visits to protected areas in a biologically rich region of Chile. Using publicly shared, location-tagged photos from social media, they created a new way to track parks and reserve visitors. They combined this with information about where people live and their socio-economic backgrounds to better understand patterns of access.

They found just 20% of the region’s population accounted for nearly 90% of all visits to protected areas. Larger parks with more biodiversity attracted the most visitors and delivered most of the cultural ecosystem benefits people seek. Wealthier people were more likely to travel long distances to visit these areas, while people with lower incomes tended to visit parks closer to home.

These findings highlight a clear inequality in access to nature. By showing how people currently travel to enjoy protected areas, this study points to the need for expanding protected area networks, especially in lower-income communities. Doing so could help ensure that more people can experience—and benefit from—the cultural ecosystem services that nature provides.

Abstract

Figure 1. Conceptual framework linking ecosystems as service providing areas, cultural ecosystem services and human benefits as supply and demand sides in human–environmental systems (adapted from (Burkhard et al., 2012; Cord et al., 2017). The green and red arrows represent the potential forms of access of the population in the region to the protected areas that we predict will vary according to their socioeconomic characteristics (the thick of the arrow represent population size and the length of the arrow represent the distance travelled along the road network). (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

Experiences with nature through visits to protected areas provide important cultural ecosystem services that have the potential to strengthen pro-environmental attitudes and behavior. Understanding accessibility to protected areas and likely preferences for enjoying the benefits of nature visits are key factors in identifying ways to reduce inequality in access and inform the planning and management for future protected areas. We develop, at a regional scale, a novel social media database of visits to public protected areas in part of the Chilean biodiversity hotspot using geotagged photographs and assess the inequality of access using the home locations of the visitors and socio-economic data. We find that 20% of the population of the region make 87% of the visits to protected areas. The larger, more biodiverse protected areas were the most visited and provided most cultural ecosystem services. Wealthier people tend to travel further to visit protected areas while people with lower incomes tend to visit protected areas that are closer to home. By providing information on the current spatial flows of people to protected areas, we demonstrate the need to expand the protected area network, especially in lower income areas, to reduce inequality in access to the benefits from cultural ecosystem services provided by nature to people.