Zoeller, Kim C., Gurney, Georgina G., Marshall, Nadine, and Cumming, Graeme S. (2021) The role of socio-demographic characteristics in mediating relationships between people and nature. Ecology and Society, 26 (3). pp. 20-43.

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Abstract

Research on ecosystem services has focused on their availability or supply and often takes a socially-aggregated approach that assumes a single human community of identical beneficiaries. However, people's ability to derive benefits from ecosystem services can differ strongly across societal groups. Access to ecosystem services can be related to socio-demographic characteristics such as material wealth, gender, education and age. Developing environmental management that does not have unequal impacts on different groups thus depends on taking a socially-disaggregated approach to assessing perceptions of ecosystem services. We explored how socio-demographic characteristics relate to cultural functional groups based on perceived bird traits. Using perception data on 491 bird species from 401 respondents along urban-rural gradients in South Africa, we found that socio-demographic characteristics are strongly associated with cultural functional groups based on perceived bird traits. Our results provide a starting point for understanding heterogeneity in the benefits from avian ecosystem services and how perceptions of cultural functional groups vary across societal groups.

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