Cybergeo (Nov 2018)
Paysages et services écosystémiques : les apports d’une approche croisée pour la connaissance des interrelations nature-sociétés
Abstract
Landscapes and ecosystem services are two concepts used by different disciplines. They are not without criticism, one is seen as a fuzzy concept and the other as an anthropocentric and utilitarian view of nature. However, these concepts are conducive to interdisciplinary research and therefore contribute to the promotion of knowledge about the interrelationship between nature and societies. They indeed involve that both ecosystems and humans, nature and societies are to be taken into account. The aim of this article is to propose a new approach, allowing to increase the knowledge of nature-societies interrelationships, by crossing these two concepts in a theoretical way. The analysis of both is successively conducted (basing above all on French literature pertaining to human and social sciences) and it reveals some common characteristics. These concepts appear complementary and we see thus the contributions of a cross-mobilization. Ecosystem services allow to take mankind’s impact into better consideration, without leaving the ecosystem out, thus providing better overview on what is not directly visible. Landscapes enable us to better take into account ecosystems, without leaving mankind’s impact out. The systemic and geohistorical approach is usually used to study landscapes; here we advocate to apply it to ecosystem services. Above all, both of these concepts complement one another in the knowledge of nature-societies interrelationships: the analysis of landscape dynamics leads us to reflect in terms of human impacts on ecosystems, while the ecosystem services focus on considering the human needs that ecosystems satisfy. A reciprocal relationship then appears and allows a more complete knowledge of the interrelationships between nature and societies, taking place successively from the point of view of ecosystems requirements then of human needs.
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