Climate change impacts the non-market value of nature: A case study of birding cultural ecosystem services in South Africa

Abstract

Climate change and human activities are increasingly straining global ecosystems, threatening the essential benefits - ecosystem services - they provide to humanity. Among these, cultural ecosystem services (CES) enhance human well-being by providing non-material non-market value beyond what is accounted for within our market based economies. Measuring the impacts of global change on these benefits remains challenging and underdeveloped. In this study, we quantify the current and future non-market use value of birding CES across South Africa, a biodiversity hotspot, by integrating social sensing data, machine learning, and econometric methods. We reveal national patterns of birding CES use and non-market value, identify beneficiaries, and demonstrate that domestic and international beneficiaries are driven by distinct social-ecological dynamics, leading to differing CES vulnerabilities under future climate and biodiversity scenarios. While most protected areas are projected to experience declines in CES value, domestic birders show more resilience, with some gains in high-value CES regions, highlighting greater vulnerability for international CES non-market value and tourism. Our findings emphasize the need to incorporate non-market CES values into global change scenarios, offering a more holistic framework that integrates ecological stewardship and human well-being, while presenting novel approaches to overcome historical limitations in the field.