Farmers’ perception of the ecosystem services provided by diurnal raptors in arid Rajasthan

Introduction

The importance of the social-ecological perspective or social dimensions (i.e., attitudes, beliefs, perceptions or values) in human-dominated agricultural landscapes are now shaping biodiversity conservation and informing policymakers and land-use managers around the world to take appropriate decisions (Bennett et al., 2015; Pooley et al., 2017; Morales-Reyes et al., 2018). Agriculture constitutes the dominant land use in many countries (Cai & Pettenella, 2013) with agricultural landscapes providing refuge and habitat for a variety of wildlife species (Perrings et al., 2009) like chital deer, chinkara, granivorous and omnivorous birds and butterflies (Karanth & Kudalkar, 2017). The loss of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes is linked to the loss of benefits obtained from ecosystems (Perrings et al., 2009; Morandin & Winston, 2006). As a result, policymakers often encourage farmers to protect the habitat of many threatened species on their farms (Kross et al., 2018). These relations make it critical for researchers to comprehend the relationship between benefits obtained from ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation in agricultural areas (Gorosábel, Bernad & Pedrana, 2022).

Many species (i.e., insects, birds, and rodents) are known crop pests in agricultural landscapes; they directly cause harm to farmers by damaging crops (Johnson et al., 2018), which may result in reduced productivity or increased production costs (Zhang et al., 2007; Şekercioğlu, Wenny & Whelan, 2016; Garcia et al., 2010). Raptors or birds of prey, on the other hand, are highly valued in some agroecosystems because they can significantly control pest abundance or activity and act as intraguild predators. They offer biological crop pest control and particularly those of insects (Belaire et al., 2015; Kross et al., 2018; Shave et al., 2018; Garcia et al., 2010), which benefits farmers indirectly (Kross et al., 2016) as raptors control insects and rodents and reduces the input cost of farmers. Raptors can play an important role in reducing pesticide usage in farms which will not only provide economic benefits but also reduce pest outbreaks (Naranjo, Ellsworth & Frisvold, 2015). Raptors also have a positive socio-ecological impact by lowering human health risks and preserving biodiversity (Gibbs, Mackey & Currie, 2009; Sarwar, 2019).

On the other hand, raptors face significant threats in agricultural landscapes due to a variety of anthropogenic activities like intensive agriculture practices, use of pesticides to maintain food production, land use change, deforestation, habitat alterations, hunting, poisoning by anticoagulant rodenticides (Hindmarch, Rattner & Elliott, 2019) and trade (Gibbs, Mackey & Currie, 2009). Raptors are frequently persecuted for their negative effects on property, livestock and human life (O’Bryan et al., 2022). Indeed, anthropogenic threats are cited as one of the major causes of decline in the ecological or ecosystem services provided by raptors around the world (Emmerson et al., 2016; Rusch et al., 2016). Raptor conservation in agricultural landscapes therefore depends to a great extent on farmers’ knowledge, behaviour, farm practices, and attitudes (Horgan, Mundaca & Crisol-Martínez, 2021; Nyirenda et al., 2017). As primary stakeholders, farmers’ direct and indirect involvement in the decision making for raptor conservation is critical. It is also prudent to note that farmers can provide important information about raptor distributions, breeding, threats, and ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes (Gaston et al., 2018; Kross et al., 2018) and it can thus be inferred that perception of farmers to a great extent can determine the species’ conservation outcomes.

Cultural ecosystem services, includes the environmental basis for aesthetic, spiritual, and recreational experiences, cultural heritage, sense of place and ways of life (Winthrop, 2014). According to Zoeller, Gurney & Cumming (2022), there is a well-established understanding of the relationships between functional traits of organisms and provisioning and regulating ecosystem services. However, the specific traits that contribute to the benefits derived from cultural ecosystem services are not yet clearly identified and the contribution of raptors to cultural ecosystem services such as sense of place or education is unknown (Echeverri et al., 2019). Horgan, Mundaca & Crisol-Martínez (2021) explain that the concept of sense of place encompasses people’s emotional attachment to a particular location, which is frequently visited by tourists and researchers for observing a specific species. It encompasses various aspects of individuals’ perceptions and interpretations of the environment, including their attachment, identity, and the symbolic meaning they attribute to the place. Sense of place has the potential to bridge social and ecological issues, recognizing the interconnectedness between human experiences and the ecological context of a specific area. Also, education and training programs to train nature guides and people operating home stays for tourists were organized by forest department and non-government organizations. We believe respondents in the study region might relate to such cultural ecosystem services, especially those who live near protected areas or community protected grasslands.

The current study aims to understand farmers’ perceptions of raptors in an arid region of the state of Rajasthan, India, as well as the socioecological factors that influence these perceptions about the raptors. Organic agriculture has gained popularity in the arid region of Rajasthan in recent years (Dangour et al., 2010) and its potential in rural communities is recognised (Panwar et al., 2010). Farmers who grow organic crops have fewer pests control options (Costa et al., 2019; van Bruggen, Gamliel & Finckh, 2016) and raptors can serve as a natural biological pest control agents in such situations (Shave et al., 2018; Garcia et al., 2010). Therefore, considering the afore-mentioned points, we hypothesised that raptors are perceived to be more beneficial to farmers growing organic crops in the region.

Furthermore, rural communities in the study area rely primarily on agriculture for a living, with small poultry operations supplementing household income (Ithika, Singh & Gautam, 2013). Male farmers are primarily responsible for livelihood and outdoor work (tourism, agriculture, crop protection, and animal husbandry/livestock grazing) whereas female farmers are responsible for the household work, livestock management at the sheds in homes, fodder/wood collection, and poultry management (Kumar et al., 2021). We therefore hypothesized that male farmers interacted with raptors more often and distinctly than female farmers and thus have different perceptions about raptors.

In addition, we also assessed farmers’ attitudes toward other species (bats and perching birds) using the same criteria. This study aimed to collect baseline data on the perceptions of farming community towards raptors for the benefit of forest department and policymakers for management of raptors in the agriculture ecosystems. Through community outreach programmes, the forest department and conservation organisations can initiate education awareness programmes to improve farmers’ knowledge of ecology and ecosystem services provided by raptors in agriculture ecosystems for future conservation initiatives in the region.

Material and Methods

Study area

In the hot arid region of Rajasthan, India, we have studied (Tiwari et al., 2021; Tiwari et al., 2023) community of diurnal raptors (Fig. 1). The study area covered 0.198 million square kilometres and is located between 24°31′ and 30°12′ north latitudes and 69°15′ to 76°42′ east longitudes. The region is characterised by low and erratic rainfall, with an average annual rainfall of 500 mm, ninety percent of which falls during the monsoon season (Moharana et al., 2012). Temperatures can range from 0 °C in the winter to 50 °C in the summer. The terrain is slightly undulating within the venue of sand deposited by inland drainage and streams with salt lakes and limited water resources and arable lands (Sharma & Sharma, 2004). Northern tropical thorn forests (Champion and Seth Classification 6B) which include Calligonum polygonoidis, Prosopis cineraria, Prosopis juliflora, Acacia capparis, Acacia Senegal, Acacia catechu, Anogeissus pendula, Butea monosperma, and Azadirachta indica, cover the rolling arid landscape. Anthropogenic activities have an impact on the landscape because 22.5 million people live here, making it the world’s most populous desert at a density of about 84 people per square kilometre (Singh & Kumar, 2015). Most residents’ occupations (60%) are farming, raising livestock and related activities (Government of Rajasthan, 2023). This area is home to numerous resident and migratory raptors despite its harsh climate and man-made limitations. The existence of so many raptor species in the arid region can be attributed to both socioeconomic and climatic factors (Chhangani, 2007).

Methods

Results

Perception of disservices

There was no discernible difference between male and female respondents’ perceptions of the detrimental effects of raptors on pollinators (p = 0.173), poultry (p = 0.957) and livestock (p = 0.948) (Fig. 2). Effect size was also merely statistical with Cohen’s d value (0.13), (0.001) and (0.0001) respectively.

Perception of direct benefits

There was a difference in the perception of males and females about the role of raptors in controlling rodents (p = 0.013) or insects (p = 0.025) and whether raptors could serve as an alternative to pesticides (p = 0.002) (Supporting Information S11). Cohen’s d value for these categories were (0.27), (0.24) and (0.31) respectively which shows that difference in perception of male and female is merely statistical. Compared to conventional farmers, those growing organic crops had a positive perception towards raptors (Fig. 3). For both vultures and raptors, the regression plot (Fig. 4) shows that relation between the perception of respondents towards the species and the population trend of the species. The results of the factor analysis show that there are three broad factors can be used to divide the items on the Likert scale (Table 1). All the ecosystem services’ benefits were adversely correlated with their disservices. For male respondents, the strength of the pairwise correlation was greater as compared to female respondents (Fig. 5). According to GLM analysis (Table 2), growing fruit crops and seed crops were the main factors influencing people’s favourable attitudes toward raptors (p = 0.02 and p = 0.001 respectively). Chicken ownership and investing in chicken management were variables which were leading to a negative perception towards raptors (S12). Out of total 313 respondents who were growing fruits and seed crops in the region, 156 respondents expressed willingness in investing in methods which may help in raptor conservation like installing nest boxes, perches and providing suitable habitat for raptors in their field. Both male and female respondents felt that bats have positive impact on insect control but they dint affect crop yield much (S6). Perching birds were perceived to have a positive impact on tourism and insect control but were considered having negative impact on crop yield (S7).

Table 2:

GLM analysis of Socio-Demographic variables and their effect on raptor perception in arid region Rajasthan.

Coefficient	Estimate	Std. error	Z value	Pr (>z)
(Intercept)	−16.99807	624.19538	−0.027	0.978275
Gender (Male)	0.08132	0.36984	0.220	0.825974
Fruit crops (growers)	−0.76781	0.33034	−2.324	0.020111*
Farming.method (Conventional)	1.08905	1.12765	0.966	0.334162
Farming.method (Organic)	0.20031	1.13471	0.177	0.859876
Education (Higher secondary)	14.83957	624.19389	0.024	0.981033
Education (Secondary)	13.51015	624.19390	0.022	0.9827
Education (Primary)	14.13420	624.19389	0.023	0.9819
Education (None)	13.53437	624.19417	0.022	0.9827
Seed crops (Growers)	−1.67898	0.43777	−3.835	0.000125*
Forage crops (Growers)	1.55572	0.40745	3.818	0.0546
Vegetable (Growers)	0.55477	0.50588	1.097	0.272792
Livestock (Owners)	0.83013	0.76202	1.089	0.275983
Null deviance: 501.08 on 372 degrees of freedom
Residual deviance: 422.16 on 360 degrees of freedom
AIC: 448.16, Number of fisher scoring iterations: 13

DOI: 10.7717/peerj.15996/table-2

Note:

An asterisk (*) indicates a significant value.

Discussion

The concept of ecosystem services has gained widespread acceptance as a way for people to express the values they attach to different ecosystem functions (Ferreira et al., 2018). Perception studies can offer crucial information for observing, comprehending, and interpreting the social impacts and ecological results of conservation. If local perceptions towards a species or group of species which are found in one particular area is positive than it would help in conservation of that area (Andrade & Rhodes, 2012). Our findings, which demonstrate how farmers view raptors, highlights the need for ongoing research, focused outreach efforts, and legislative measures that give farmers the information which they need to choose for implementing wildlife-friendly agricultural practices (Kross et al., 2016) like (a) providing roosts, (b) managing habitat complexity, (c) reintroducing native species and (d) reducing impact of invasive species on target species (Lindell et al., 2018). Depending upon the impact they have, raptors are seen by the respondents as both beneficial and harmful. Raptors can help in pest control (Raimilla & Rau, 2017). On the other hand, they can cause negative perceptions due to poultry predation. It was also reported by some respondents who practiced poultry farming in the region. Apart from predation, raptors can also be a reason for transmission of diseases to poultry which may add to further losses (Nyirenda et al., 2017).

Additionally, raptors were viewed as being extremely beneficial for fruit growers’ produce because they keep rodents and other pests off the farm. Putting up nest boxes to draw raptors can help reduce rodent populations on farms (Coles, Wallis & Brennan, 2019; Paz Luna et al., 2020). Frugivory by raptors is reported by Fitzsimons & Leighton (2021) but in our study region, no such case was confirmed by the respondents.

We observed that both male and female organic farmers had positive perception of raptors and were willing to spend for their conservation. Among respondents, most of the organic farmers believed that their cropping method could also help in the conservation of raptors, it was also observed by Kirk, Martin & Freemark Lindsay (2020). Integrated pest management (IPM) is a decision-based process involving coordinated use of multiple tactics for optimizing the control of all classes of pests (insects, pathogens, weeds, vertebrates) in an ecologically and economically sound manner. It involves regular monitoring of pests, and their natural enemies (Ehler, 2006). Raptors play an effective role in controlling damage to crops by feeding on pests (Peisley, Saunders & Luck, 2017; Gorosábel, Bernad & Pedrana, 2022) and are important part of IPM (Zagorski, 2019). The rodent population can be controlled by conserving raptors (Antkowiak & Hayes, 2004), constructing nest boxes (Paz Luna et al., 2020) or by erecting artificial perches (Kay et al., 1994), which in long term will also lower the cost of farming inputs on pesticides and rodenticides (Machar et al., 2017). They can serve as effective alternatives to pesticides and reduce the impact which these harmful chemicals have on food chain (María et al., 1996; Hughes et al., 2013). As conventional farming is more common than organic farming, further research in this region is needed to understand role of the raptors for controlling insect pests.

Views of female respondents on the effect of raptors on livestock varied quite significantly from those of males as most of the female respondents spent more time with their livestock/poultry in the sheds. They spent less time outdoors as compared to male counterparts.

According to research conducted by Courchamp et al. (2006) and Hall, Milner-Gulland & Courchamp (2008), the perception of raptors and vultures as beneficial species is influenced by the level of rarity attributed to these species in terms of their perceived population. They found a positive relationship between species rarity and perception, indicating that species perceived as rarer are often viewed more positively.

In contrast, Morales-Reyes et al. (2018) discovered an opposite relationship between species rarity and the perception of species as providers of ecosystem services. This suggests that as species become rarer, they may be perceived as less capable of providing ecosystem services. These studies shed light on the complex relationship between species rarity, perception, and the evaluation of their role in ecological processes. The general public gives more value to rare species relative to common ones (Angulo & Courchamp, 2009). It is a common belief that attitudes and perceptions towards a species are influenced by the degree of its rarity. Although, it was reported that rareness in terms of distribution cannot be a criterion in the decision for investing on conservation of the species (Martín-López, Montes & Benayas, 2007). Elusive species which are globally considered as endangered and are least known are rarely perceived as emblematic (Cortés-Avizanda et al., 2018) but our results on rarity and perception towards a species are in concurrence with study done by Otsuka, Nakano & Takahashi (2016) which indicates that farmers have a species-specific view that incorporates cultural and aesthetic value of rare species, and they prefer usefulness of these species over other.

The variables were interpreted as various categories that stood in for various ecosystem benefits and drawbacks. Disservices were found to be negatively correlated with ecosystem services and other categories for both male and female respondents’ negative correlations between disservices and other cultural ecosystem services suggest that these categories are dependent on each other. People are influenced by general positive or negative effects when judging disservices and benefits. It suggests that likeability of respondents towards raptors was positively correlated with direct and indirect benefits while negatively correlated with the disservices. This “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” paradox (Morales-Reyes et al., 2018) can be understood by socio economic characteristics of the respondents who are involved in poultry management. They perceive raptor predation of chickens as a loss to their livelihood. Also, livestock owners view raptors as a threat to the newborn cattle and a carrier of disease. On the other hand, fruit growing and seed growing farmers and those practicing organic agriculture perceive raptors as beneficial in their effect of controlling rodents and pests. Strength of correlation was slightly higher for the male respondents. It may be explained by the fact that in this region male respondents are more involved in farming, working as nature guides and transhumance and they interact with raptors more often than female respondents.

Implementing long term conservation plans needs taking social perspective in consideration, misled perception of a species can be detrimental for its survival (Ceríaco, 2012). To change farmers’ behaviours toward more sustainable conservation of farmland biodiversity, instruments should aim to influence individual farmer’s motivation and behaviour. However, a lack of knowledge of farmers’ opinions toward wildlife can lead to poor integration of conservation measures (Katuwal et al., 2021; Kross et al., 2018). We should aim to place farmland biodiversity “in the hands and minds” of farmers (Ahnström, 2009). Without an appreciation of the human dimension to problems of conflict, sustaining species outside protected areas may be difficult (Lee & Priston, 2005).

Conclusion

Conservation of raptors requires landscape-based approach beyond the protected areas. Very few resources and funding are allocated for the conservation of the raptors residing outside protected areas. Arid region of Rajasthan is home of many species of raptors but the overall conservation planning for raptors needs to include a socio-ecological perspective. Designing education and awareness programs along with community participation can reduce conflict with raptor in rural regions and will be beneficial for implementation of long-term conservation programs.

Supplemental Information