Shrub encroachment and stakeholder perceptions of rangeland ecosystem services: balancing conservation and management?

Although the impacts of shrub encroachment on the ecosystem processes have been well-documented, little is known about the extent to which socio-cultural values and perceptions might influence actions undertaken to manage shrub proliferation. Understanding stakeholder values is important because the ecosystem’s capacity to supply a given service or suite of services must be balanced against the value society places on them. Research to date has emphasized supply with little consideration of value, making it difficult to comprehensively or objectively evaluate trade-offs and set priorities, particularly when managing for one particular service or a suite of services that may adversely affect other services. To address this, we conducted a case study in Southern Arizona and New Mexico (USA) to evaluate stakeholder perceptions of and preferences for various ecosystem services provided on semi-arid rangelands where shrub proliferation has impacted traditional livestock grazing. Perceptions of rangeland ecosystem services were elicited via a visually based landscape interpretation while preferences were quantified using best-worst scaling (BWS). Our findings suggest that stakeholders familiar with rangelands and their management generally perceive low shrub cover as providing a wider range of valued ecosystem services compared to rangelands with high shrub cover. Contrary to expectations, ecosystem service preferences in the context of shrub encroachment were generally uniform across all stakeholder groups (e.g., ranchers, state/federal governmental employees, non-governmental land managers, academicians, recreationists), with habitat for biodiversity and erosion control being identified as the most preferred. Accordingly, our results indicate that the widespread perception/assumption that ranchers in this region undertake brush management to enhance livestock production solely for economic gain is seen as too narrow. Our results also suggest an opportunity for brush management to serve as a potential win-win management action if framed as a way to maintain or promote rangeland biodiversity and mitigate erosion.