Fostering resilient agro-food futures through a social-ecological systems framework: Public-private partnerships for delivering ecosystem services in Europe

In recent decades, various public policies have targeted agriculture and forestry's relationship with environ-mental protection and management. Among environmental policy communities the approach is increasingly framed through the theoretical concepts of ecosystem services (ES) or public goods (PG). Both offer useful perspectives to enhance understanding, but each only partially reflects the complex inter-linkages between productive land management and multiple environmental and social assets (biodiversity, landscapes, water, soil and air quality, rural vitality, culture and heritage), constraining their capacity for effective policy development. The Social-Ecological-Systems framework (SES), considering both natural and socio-economic elements in complex systems and interrogating these joint production relationships, offers added value in this context. The PEGASUS project1 applied an adapted SES framework to identify the potential complementary and synergistic roles of policy, private and community actors in promoting socially beneficial outcomes, strengthening ecosystem services and sustainability. Two case studies illustrate the analytical process and its ability to connect top down and bottom-up perspectives. This generated an expanded range of options focused on social processes and market development facilitated by an enabling, responsive policy framework. Lessons for governance and practice, as well as international relevance, are briefly considered.