Scientific knowledge building and governance in terrestrial and marine environments: worlds apart?

VIRGINIA ALONSO ROLDÁN; DAVID GALVÁN; PRISCILA LOPES; JAIME LÓPEZ; ANGELINA SANDERSON BELLAMY; FEDERICO GALLEGO; ANA CINTI ; PIA V. RIUS; BARBARA SCHROETER

Ecosystem Services

Elsevier

Año: 2019

2212-0416

The Ecosystem Services (ES) approach suggest that the governance of socio-ecological systems should be integrated. Conditions to apply this approach are not set if the generation of scientific knowledge about the linkages between ecosystem components fails in development/transmission or governance systems do not fit ecological linkages. The analysis of land-sea systems highlight systemic relations and permit to evaluate if a systemic view as proposed by the ES approach is being applied. This article is a diagnosis of how well current approaches integrate a systemic view of land-sea interaction in scientific knowledge building processes and governance systems in a Latin American context. Scientific knowledge building processes were approached on-line survey to academics from 22 research institutions. Governance systems were examined comparing 13 case studies. Results show that: (1) Over all the generation of scientific knowledge in Latin America is not systemically approached, (2) there are deficiencies in transferring results to stakeholders related with both environments, (3) governance schemes are compartmentalized and (4) conflictive situations enhance the visibility of systemic relations. There is a need to focus research agendas in land-sea interactions fostering networking and generating two way communication to apply adaptive management strategies.