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The farmer as a landscape steward: Comparing local understandings of landscape stewardship, landscape values, and land management actions

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Abstract

We develop a landscape stewardship classification which distinguishes between farmers’ understanding of landscape stewardship, their landscape values, and land management actions. Forty semi-structured interviews were conducted with small-holder (<5 acres), medium-holders (5–100 acres), and large-holders (>100 acres) in South-West Devon, UK. Thematic analysis revealed four types of stewardship understandings: (1) an environmental frame which emphasized the farmers’ role in conserving or restoring wildlife; (2) a primary production frame which emphasized the farmers’ role in taking care of primary production assets; (3) a holistic frame focusing on farmers’ role as a conservationist, primary producer, and manager of a range of landscape values, and; (4) an instrumental frame focusing on the financial benefits associated with compliance with agri-environmental schemes. We compare the landscape values and land management actions that emerged across stewardship types, and discuss the global implications of the landscape stewardship classification for the engagement of farmers in landscape management.

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Acknowledgments

This research received support through Grant 603447 (Project HERCULES) from the European Commission (7th Framework Program). The paper is a contribution to the Programme on Ecosystem Change and Society (www.pecs-science.org) and the Global Land Project (www.globallandproject.org).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Rolighedsvej 23, 1958, Frederiksberg C, Denmark

    Christopher M. Raymond, Nora Fagerholm & Tobias Plieninger

  2. Barbara Hardy Institute, University of South Australia, PO Box 190, Stirling, SA, 5152, Australia

    Christopher M. Raymond

  3. Institute of Social Sciences in Agriculture, Chair of Societal Transition and Agriculture, University of Hohenheim, Schloss Museumsflügel, 70599, Stuttgart, Germany

    Claudia Bieling

  4. Department of Geography and Geology, University of Turku, 20014, Turku, Finland

    Nora Fagerholm

  5. Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University Centre for the Environment, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QY, UK

    Berta Martin-Lopez

  6. Social-Ecological Systems Laboratory, Department Ecology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, C/Darwin, 2, Madrid, Spain

    Berta Martin-Lopez

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  1. Christopher M. Raymond
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  2. Claudia Bieling
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  5. Tobias Plieninger
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Correspondence to Christopher M. Raymond.

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Raymond, C.M., Bieling, C., Fagerholm, N. et al. The farmer as a landscape steward: Comparing local understandings of landscape stewardship, landscape values, and land management actions. Ambio 45, 173–184 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-015-0694-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-015-0694-0

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