Natural heritage as a source of ecosystem services for recreation and tourism in Bulgaria

Journal of the Bulgarian Geographical Society

article

Mariyana Nikolova¹  Stoyan Nedkov¹  Bilyana Borisova²  Miglena Zhiyanski³  Stelian Dimitrov⁴  Kliment Naydenov⁵ 

[1] National Institute of Geophysics, Geodesy and Geography - Bulgarian Academy of Sciences;Sofia University "St.Kliment Ohridski";Forest Research Institute - Bulgarian Academy of Sciences;Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski;Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski"

关键词: Natural heritage;    ecosystem services;    tourism;   

DOI  :  10.3897/jbgs.e79485

来源: Pensoft

【 摘 要 】

According to the World Heritage Convention, Natural Heritage(NH) includes natural features consisting of physical formations,geological features, and physiographical formations, natural sites,or precisely delineated natural areas of outstanding universalvalue from the point of view of science, conservation, or naturalbeauty (UNESCO 1972). It is a part of nature that has retained itssocial significance over time and has a carrier of material and/or spiritual benefits of extremely high value for the previous andcurrent generations. The outstanding universal value at a nationallevel can be represented as “natural significance”, which refers tothe importance of ecosystems, biodiversity, and geodiversity fortheir existence value, as well as their scientific, social, aesthetic,and life-support value (Harrison and O'Donnel 2010). Ecosystemsincorporate biotic and abiotic elements (i.e. biodiversity andgeodiversity) and can be considered as the spatial units which canrepresent the NH of the particular area in terms of their values topeople. The concept of ecosystem services (ES) describes thesevalues as benefits derived by nature to people (MA 2005) and can beused as the scientific framework that links the natural heritage andthe social systems. Recreation and tourism are among the activitiesthat are very much dependent on the flows of benefits from nature,but on the other hand, they may generate negative impacts onecosystems through pollution, intensified erosion, harm to wildlifeor habitats, and biodiversity loss, etc. A response to these problemscould be the approach of sustainable tourism which aims to balancethe environmental, economic, and socio-cultural features of tourismdevelopment by maintaining environmental resources, the sociocultural livelihoods of host communities, and providing stakeholderbenefits (Schloegel 2007). In this respect, the assessment of ES canbe an important tool in the process to bridge the conceptual gapbetween the ecological and social sciences, by linking the state ofecosystems with human well-being and activities.

【 授权许可】

Unknown