Anthropogenic climate change and human pressures are major threats to marine and coastal systems. The combination of both not only compromises the ecological functioning of the systems but also the services from which humans benefit. The current climate crisis and the biodiversity loss associated to these increasing human pressures show that the relationship between humans and the rest of the natural world is failing. Sustainability science has pinpointed fading relations between humans and nature as one of the potential causes for the degradation of ecosystems. Leading from this, it is argued that fostering the re-connection of humans with nature could contribute towards the development of sustainable pathways. The connection between humans and their surrounding nature has been highlighted in their significance over the past decade, as strengthening this connection may simultaneously increase human well-being and the ecological sustainability. The understanding of human-nature interactions and how relations are built can be seen as one realm of fostering transformative change. Within this session, we refer to these interactions as ‘human-nature relations’ to enable various concepts that are used in research today to be integrated under this broad umbrella term. Hence, in this session we welcome contributions from studies illustrating the role of human-nature relations in the conservation and recovery of coastal and marine ecosystems. The session also welcomes contributions related to new methodologies used in the exploration of these relations and of pathways of effectively integrating human-nature connections into marine and coastal sustainable management.
Lead Organizer: Ana Ruiz, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (anaruiz@imedea.uib-csic.es)
Co-organizers:
Irene Olivé, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn (irene.olive@szn.it)
Maraja Riechers, Leuphana University (Riechers@leuphana.de)
Natali Lazzari, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela (lazzari.natali@gmail.com)
Antonio Castro, Universidad de Almeria (acastro@ual.es)
Presentations
10:30 AM
HUMAN-NATURE RELATIONS AS PATHWAYS FOR CONNECTING PEOPLE AND SEAGRASSES (6880)
Primary Presenter: Irene Olivé, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn (irene.olive@szn.it)
Worldwide, coastal areas are facing several pressures associated to human actions, which seriously compromises the functioning of these systems and the variety of ecosystem services and other nature’s contributions to people they provide. To understand the different social-ecological contexts and to drive sustainability transformations in coastal habitats, interdisciplinary cross-sectoral approaches are required together with effective communication strategies. Here we present an initiative, started from the EuroMarine foresight workshop Pathgrass, aimed at developing and implementing social-ecological approaches in seagrass-dominated coastal systems. The Pathgrass workshop gathered a multidisciplinary research community of experts on seagrass, social-ecological systems, and social sciences to promote a collective reflection on human-seagrass connections/interactions. The Pathgrass initiative aims to i) identify (dis)connection points between human and seagrasses; ii) understand the causes of the (dis)connection; and iii) foster people-seagrasses connectedness. Further steps of this initiative will develop common conceptual frameworks and social-ecological sustainability models to be implemented in seagrass-dominated coastal systems.
10:45 AM
Restoring Aotearoa New Zealand’s lost shellfish reefs (6991)
Primary Presenter: Jenny Hillman, University of Auckland (j.hillman@auckland.ac.nz)
Shellfish reefs, once extensive in Aotearoa New Zealand, make a significant contribution to the health and resilience of our coastal ecosystems, which have high cultural, social, economic and environmental value. The endemic green-lipped mussel (kūtai/Perna canaliculus), once widespread in New Zealand, is now restricted to the aquaculture industry and small remnant natural reefs due to overharvesting and drastic habitat changes over the past century. Using a novel interdisciplinary and inter-organisational approach, we have been working to restore mussel reefs in New Zealand. Traditional iwi groups, community groups, industry, and management parties integrate with the science to tackle the challenges of shellfish restoration work from a community and management perspective and create a successful restoration group and, most importantly, restored shellfish beds. Our research includes providing the underpinning science needed for successful restorations, the multiple and often hidden ecosystem services that restoration provides, and the development of novel low-cost techniques to assist and increase the success of present and future restoration efforts. Our globally novel research has so far found that restored mussel reefs are successful in enhancing denitrification, especially in sandier habitats, and increased key fisheries and epifauna species.
11:00 AM
SOCIAL MEDIA BASED SAMPLING OF HUMAN-NATURE INTERACTIONS REVEALS MARINE ECOSYSTEM FEATURES AS IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTORS OF CULTURAL ECOSYSTEM SERVICES (6743)
Primary Presenter: Anne Cathrine Linder, Technical University of Denmark (acali@aqua.dtu.dk)
The large and rapidly growing recreation and tourism sector can have negative effects on biodiversity. It is, therefore, necessary to determine the overlap between species and habitats sensitive to tourism and recreation and ecosystem features underpinning cultural ecosystem services (CES). CES can be defined as intangible benefits people obtain from nature exposure and are considered important contributors to human wellbeing. Here we used social media data to gain a better understanding of the relationship between the ecosystem features and human activities underpinning human-nature interactions. We used a bottom-up approach to build a repertoire of CES human activities and CES nature features. We queried Reddit to retrieve a complete list of nature features mentioned in nature dedicated conversations and human activities mentioned in conversations dedicated to outdoor activities. We then sampled Twitter to estimate the co-occurrence of nature features and human activities in tweets. We estimated the CES bipartite network from those tweets, where each edge was weighted by the number of times nature features and human activities co-occurred in tweets. Nature features associated with marine wetlands had a high generality and there was a high dependence of activities on these features. Thus, identifying marine ecosystems as important contributors to providing CES. The framework developed here provides a new method for investigating human-nature interactions and can be further used at a finer scale to identify specific features of these ecosystems underpinning CES.
11:15 AM
THE ROLE OF INSTITUTIONAL AND CULTURAL ELEMENTS IN SHAPING KNOWLEDGE AND CONNECTIONS TO THE ENVIRONMENT (6413)
Primary Presenter: Ana Ruiz-Frau, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (anaruiz@imedea.uib-csic.es)
Humanity is currently following a deeply unsustainable path. It has been argued that an important reason behind this unsustainability is the existing disconnection between humans and nature. Diminishing levels of human-nature interactions and lack of knowledge and understanding of the fundamental role of nature as the basis for human wellbeing are important factors that contribute towards this disconnection. In this study, we focus on Posidonia oceanica an endemic seagrass species in the Mediterranean which crucially contributes to the maintenance of species, functions and ecosystems services. We present a comparative pan-Mediterranean study, across 6 countries, on 3749 children aged 11-16 where we explored how their knowledge on Posidonia, perceptions and values (intrinsic, instrumental and relational) are tightly linked to the institutional and cultural context of each of the areas explored. We show how contextual aspects such as the level of legislation on Posidonia, the promotion of scientific research, the integration of environmental programs in school education, the intensity of embeddedness in culture and different forms of art and the implication of NGOs, are fundamental determinants in promoting a healthy and appreciative connection to the environment and hence supporting its sustainable use.
11:30 AM
The role of hospitality tourism sector to engage society to recover marine and coastal systems (5885)
Primary Presenter: Federico Cardona Pons, Iberostar Group (fede.cardona@grupoiberostar.com)
Iberostar Group (IG) is a family company with more than 30.000 employees managing more than 100 hotels (most of them along the coastline) and welcoming more than 5.6 millions of guests in 16 countries anually. IG has committed to having all ecosystems that surround its properties in improving ecological health by 2030, and expects its committment being recognized by 90% of the clients in-stay by 2023 and becoming a major driver for 60% of clients to choose IG by 2025. We present three examples to illustrate how a hospitality company, whose success relies on a good environemntal status, can coordinate its marketing, operations and sustainability departmens, including its scientific team, to play an essential role in the recovery of marine and coastal ecosystems. In Jamaica, IG supported the formation of a fishing association and is working towards establishing a marine sanctuary in front of its property, while establishing a coral restoration program to provide alternative income. In the Dominican Republic, IG created a coral lab for staff, students and guests to interact with scientists doing research. The company is training 600 individuals in ecosystem restoration methods and coral reproduction, and is offering environmental awareness programs to 10.000 students across the country. In Spain, IG created an hotel-observatory to monitor coastal erosion due to climate change related effects, the observations include citizen-science activities in order to raise awareness from general public, guests and company employees about the fragility of the coastal zone.
SS105 The Role of Human-Nature Relations in the Recovery of Marine Systems
Description
Time: 10:30 AM
Date: 5/6/2023
Room: Sala Portixol 2