Can rural tourism stimulate biodiversity conservation and influence farmer's management decisions?

Abstract

The Pampean agroecosystems are oriented to providing a few Ecosystem Services (ES) with undesired consequences on the environment, particularly the loss of biodiversity and cultural ES. In this context, it is necessary to find ways to make agricultural production compatible with biodiversity conservation through sustainable practices. Rural tourism is a form of productive diversification that generates additional economic income for farmers and may encourage the conservation of uncultivated semi-natural environments. Thus, agroecosystems could provide a greater variety of ES, achieving their multifunctionality. For this, it is necessary to understand the link between land use and biodiversity and the psycho-social factors that stimulate or limit farmers to conserve their field´s semi-natural environments. To this end, we conducted a study with three approaches: 1) we evaluated the intentions of rural Pampa´s farmers of conserving uncultivated environments through surveys analyzed under the framework of the Theory of Planned Behavior, 2) we explored the preferred environments for recreation through a self-administered survey to rural tourists, and 3) we conducted bird surveys to associate land use with biodiversity. The results showed a trend of greater intention to conserve uncultivated environments in farmers with rural tourism than without rural tourism. These intentions were related to more positive attitudes due to the intrinsic and utilitarian values of conserving uncultivated environments and less identification with agriculture only as a source of economic income. Tourists preferred semi-natural environments for recreation, which also sustain higher bird diversity. Results allowed to detect key aspects to influence farmers to achieve a greater intention to conserve uncultivated environments and manage them to supply multiple ES.