The Cultural Ecosystem Services of Mediterranean Pine Forests

Cultural ecosystem services, defined as the intangible benefits that humans derive from ecosystems, are at once self-evident and allusive to define, specifically because they are a function of culture and the interaction between two dynamic systems: human societies and natural ecosystems. Mediterranean pine forests, as a product of millennia of human--nature interactions are therefore an exemplary and challenging case study for assessing cultural services. In this review, I assess cultural ecosystem services supplied by Mediterranean pine and mixed forests. I first expand upon the challenges of assessing cultural ecosystem services, emphasizing the dynamic nature of social-ecological systems and their feedbacks. Cultural service assessments are considered highly context-specific, subject to change with changes in social context, shifts in ecosystem structure and function, and resultant changes in social and ecological interactions. Next, based on a review of the recent literature, I inventory the range of cultural services provided by, and relational values inspired by, pine and mixed-pine forests around the Mediterranean Basin. Then, the case of pine forests in contemporary Israel is used as an example of the challenges of assessing cultural services. I conclude by providing some consistent trends in cultural ecosystem provision, and finally look to the future of cultural service from pine forests, considering forecasted environmental changes in the Mediterranean Basin.