Ecosystem Services Assessment for the Conservation of Mangroves in French Guiana Using Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping

Abstract

In 2016, the French government adopted a law for biodiversity, setting an objective of protecting 55,000 hectares of mangroves. This objective is particularly important to French Guiana, which shelters almost 60% of French mangrove ecosystems, and where mangroves occupy three quarters of the coastline. The coast of French Guiana is also where issues associated with demographic and economic dynamics concentrate. There is thus a need to plan for an economic development that is compatible with the objective of protecting mangrove ecosystems. Ecosystem services (ES) assessment can support such decision-making, informing on the costs and benefits associated with alternative mangrove conservation strategies. While the many services provided by mangrove ecosystems are well documented worldwide, the extent to which these can be encountered in the specific case of French Guiana is currently only very partially known. Relying on the Fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM) approach, we collected and compared the perception of multiple and heterogeneous groups of stakeholders, of the functioning of the mangrove social-ecological system at the scale of French Guiana. Results, allow to identify mangroves ES and threats particularly influenced by the high sedimentary dynamism of the shoreline. This generates two distinct components of the mangrove social-ecological system: mud banks where ecosystem services are spatially and temporally unstable, and associated with perceived constraints for key coastal activities, and estuarine mangroves where the ecosystem services usually described in the literature on mangroves can be found. Disservices associated with mangrove ecosystems were also identified as a key interaction. This can inform the research needs that should support sustainable development trajectories, fully accounting for the protection of French Guianese mangrove ecosystems.