Comparing the farmland preservation goals of the government and the public from insights of ecosystem services trade-offs: Evidence from Hubei, China

Abstract

The failure of developing targeted and effective farmland preservation policies, especially in the developing world, are partly attributable due to a lack of local-level information on the local government's and the public's goals of farmland preservation. This paper sought to address this shortcoming from insights of ecosystem services (ES) trade-offs. Utilizing eight counties in Hubei Province, China, as the case study area, we uncovered each county government's and its public's goals of farmland preservation based on ES trade-offs and diagnosed the consistency between the two. The results showed that provisioning services are the key ES that the local governments prioritized. However, the public's goals of farmland preservation in each county involved only non-provisioning services (i.e., regulating services, cultural services, and supporting services), with emphasis placed on cultural services. The local government failed to account adequately for the public's various needs. Moreover, the government's and the public's farmland preservation goals and their inconsistency were spatially distinct across the eight counties. These findings point to the need for the local government to involve the public's requirements and adapt to local context when setting spatially differentiated goals of farmland preservation and developing corresponding policies. Furthermore, it is necessary to promote the transformation of farmland use for sustainable intensification to provide provisioning and non-provisioning services that meet the goals of the government and the public.