Place of nature-based tourism in ecosystem services valuation in rural landscape

Abstract

Ecosystem services (ES) are the subjects of number of studies in recent ten years. There were many attempts to valuate ecosystem services from ecolog- ical, social and economic aspects. The fact is there are limited numbers of studies focused on the place of tourism as a part of cultural ecosystem ser- vices in the frame of rural surrounding. The research includes perception of different interest groups (local inhabitants, stakeholders and students) on ES in selected rural areas. The aim of this paper is to identify the most important ES using priority ranking analysis and range of variance between researched groups. The results show that in local inhabitant’s perception provisioning ES are still major driving force of rural economy. Cultural ES is finding its place in perception of stakeholders and students. In the range of cultural ES cate- gories, nature-based tourism was recognized as one of important factors of development. The conclusion of the paper indicates the necessity of including cultural ES in the analysis and assesses the need to map places of exceptional cultural value. In addition, the need to use the ES framework for identifying the economic benefits of cultural and natural resources are emphasized.