From Action Research to Action Learning Ecosystem services assessment as a learning platform for students, local land users and researchers
The Spring School in Landscape and Territory Agronomy has been organized by an international team of teachers since 2007. The target of landscape agronomy is to address the spatially explicit interactions between farming practices and natural resources at territorial level. It requires an action research approach that we have conducted on different topics all applied to the same region in Pisa (Italy).The case study based Spring School is a good platform for action learning. So far, we focused on environmental and water management (2007, 2009) peri urban agriculture (2013) and the ecosystem services provided by agricultural and semi natural habitat management (2015) These case studies enabled to elicit the relationship between stakes that are often treated separately. The course was designed for PhD students of various disciplinary backgrounds but all interested in action research related to agricultural land management. In this learning platform, local stakeholders are involved through round table discussions, interviews and the territory game, a participatory territorial foresight. Students can experience the effectiveness of action research by interacting with local stakeholders and they become aware of the complexity of information gathering and analysis in a real situation. Through the interactions with the students, local stakeholders have the opportunity to widen their view on stakes they are concerned with in their every day life. Compared to pure action research, our learning platform creates a collaborative environment facilitating interactions between stakeholders and therefore it creates a learning device for them as well. In this specific case, the action research methods proposed to the students and used in their interactions with the stakeholders allowed the group to prepare spatially explicit maps indicating where various ecosystem services are produced and where their benefits are delivered according to the stakeholders. These maps were eye openers for the stakeholders but also for the researchers involved, because it allowed them to bridge the gap towards transdisciplinary approaches to address land management in an agricultural context. Moreover, it highlighted that the main challenge regards land use management and its coordination at territorial level, regardless of the specific ecosystem services stakeholders expect to receive or think they deliver through their activities. In particular, the participatory territorial foresight resulted in innovative land management proposals capable to overcome more traditional and sectorial perspectives. 1. The course structure The various promoters of territorial development namely farmers and other land managers such as water management consortia, nature reserve managers, and local communities, researchers, technical advisers, policy and administrative stakeholders have few arenas to exchange knowledge. Training courses and educational programmes can provide a 'platform' (Lardon et al. 2012) to gather some of these actors and facilitate communication between people with different perceptions about the territory through comparison of hard data and more subjective information based on people's experiences (cf. Scherr 2016; Raymond et al. 2010) As far as agriculture is concerned, a specific challenge is to upscale local actions to a territorial level in order to understand how innovation of farming practices is both conditioned and affected by overall landscape management (Benoit, Rizzo et al. 2012) To this end, an international and interdisciplinary team of researchers has organized the Spring School in "Landscape and Territory Agronomy" since 2007. The structure and aims of the Spring School were presented during previous IFSA Symposia (Moonen et al. 2010; Rapey et al. 2008) and have been maintained in time. Each year, this solid frame of the courses is applied to a specific core theme that is suitable to be explored by a landscape agronomy approach (sensu Benoit, Rizzo et al. 2012) In particular, the themes are selected for their power to address the relationships between land management issues that are often kept separate at the territorial level. During past editions, in 2007, 2009 and 2013, the courses focused respectively on environmental and water management and periurban agriculture. The course generally lasts 1 week and addresses PhD students. Generally, it takes place in spring and the key feature is to combine lectures and activities belonging to the domain of action research, so as to constitute the above mentioned learning platform that provides new experiences, knowledge and information to the students but also to the local stakeholders and researchers organising the course. There are three types of lectures. First, there are theoretical lectures to introduce the background of landscape agronomy and of the theme chosen for the Spring School. Second, some applied lectures provide a toolbox grouping information on general action research techniques and case study specific tools. The last type of lectures addresses a characterisation of the study area in terms of land use, agro pedo climatic information, economic activities, and any piece of data that is relevant to relate the case study with the specific theme of the year. An action research structure underpins the lectures following five steps: 1) a round table with local stakeholders to identify the issues at stake, 2) the assessment of land use management through the interpretation of available maps and databases, 3) field trips to observe the landscape and for open ended interviews with some key actors involved in land use management, 4) classroom work to prepare a territorial participatory foresight following the method called "territory game" (Lardon, 2013) and 5) performing the territory game with local decision makers, land use managers and other relevant stakeholders. On the one hand, the five action research steps are meant to stimulate students to interact at different levels with stakeholders. On the other hand, the lectures provide them with the concepts and the tools to analyse and integrate all the available information provided in the form of maps or databases. Altogether, the integration of lectures and action research builds an action learning platform that fosters three goals. First, it familiarizing the students with theory and practice of action research. In this way, the students can test the method reliability by interacting with local stakeholders and experience the complexity of information gathering and analysis in a real situation. Second, it has proven to be fruitful also for local stakeholders, who are challenged to observe the stakes they are concerned with in their every day life from different perspectives. Third, it helps the researchers to improve the reliability and saliency of their local data elaborations by checking it with the stakeholders and eventually integrating the local information. For both students and stakeholders, the action learning platform allows widening the individual viewpoints thanks to exchanges between stakeholders who do not meet regularly, and by breaking the silos between methods and disciplines like agronomy and geography. In this paper, we will focus on the course structure and the main results from the 2015 edition that dealt with the management of ecosystem services (ESs) and in discussion we will provide an overview of the opportunities the four Spring School courses have offered students, local stakeholders and the involved researchers. 2. Action research on ecosystem services as a learning platform 2.1 Study area The case study for the 2015 course edition was the urban region nearby Pisa (Tuscany, Italy) The area covers approximately 49 000 ha (49% of which are agricultural areas) and spans from the coastal plain to the inland hills with the typical climate and land management conflicts of a Mediterranean landscape (Marraccini et al. 2013) From a geo morphological point of view the region can be divided in two contrasting areas the Pisa plain along the coast and of the northeastern hill system called Monte Pisano (i.e. Pisa mountain).These two areas are connected by the movement and activities of land users and local inhabitants and from previous studies it emerged clearly that the perception of local land users about these areas are very different. The Pisa plain is mainly a production area dominated by arable crop and forage. Semi natural habitats (SNH) are concentrated in the Regional Natural Park (Parco di Migliarino, San Rossore, Massaciuccoli) that is dominated by woodland, covering most of the coastline near Pisa. In the cropped area SNH consist of drainage channels and small, mostly herbaceous, field margins. Water discharge is a great challenge in order to allow farmers to cultivate their fields timely and avoid water stagnation. The Monte Pisano is a hilly landscape composed by olive groves on the footand mid hill, and by mixed forest and Mediterranean garrigue, pinewood and abandoned chestnut plantations on the top hill. Nowadays, most of the olive groves are managed by hobby farmers (Gennai Schott et al. 2014) About 50% are organic growers and the understory consists of spontaneous vegetation managed through cutting. Dry stone wall terraces characteristic of these olive groves are only partially maintained and collapsed walls are frequently observed (Rizzo et al. 2007) Abandonment is increasing in the area due to the high costs of maintaining the olive groves while harvest is at risk of olive fly attack. Furthermore, the Monte Pisano is at high risk of wild fire during the dry summer period. The patches of olive groves create many SNH connected through the understories and the elements of the terraces system. 2.2 The Ecosystem Services as example to address territorial development Daily (1997) defined ESs as "the conditions and processes through which natural ecosystems, and the species that make