Nature like setting. Cultural ecosystem services and disservices of French urban green spaces
Résumé
Society has a growing interest for urban nature. The decision-makers have to take this concern into account but they need to know the fallouts of nature for their municipalities, their citizens and the tourists. It was the purpose of our research programs, which were funded by the French region Centre-Val de Loire. How urban nature is perceived by users? What kind of nature is more appreciated? How explain the increasing interest for urban nature? What users research in green spaces? The study was conducted in six green spaces, which belong to different categories (forest and semi-natural, ornamental and allotment gardens) and are located in the six main cities of the region Centre-Val de Loire. 321 users were interviewed from a semi-supervised manner. To complete this study, 12 green spaces managers (elected representatives, heads and technicians) were questioned on the representation of nature by urban-dwellers. To put the results into perspective, we also analyzed tourists’ point of view in the Center Parcs site, which is located in the same region and can be assimilated to urban space, with its cottages, facilities and shops. Here, the study considered an innovative method, basing on 2.118 comments posted by customers on a sharing website (TripAdvisor). The first conclusion is that nature is unanimously appreciated and sought-after, according to the accounts of green spaces users as well as Net surfers. But the green spaces managers moderate this idea. City-dwellers complain to them about nature: it has also disservices (pollen, weeds). If we analyze further the point of view of green spaces users, considering the perspective offered by Center Parcs customers, we can observe that French citizen appreciated only one kind of nature, the managed one. Moreover, this nature appears only like a setting. Indeed, users come first in nature spaces for peace and quiet, before coming for the closeness with nature.