Environmental Conservation: page 1 of 11 C  Foundation for Environmental Conservation 2014 doi:10.1017/S0376892914000071 Contrasting perceptions of ecosystem services of an African forest park JOEL HARTTER 1 ∗ , JENNIFER SOLOMON 2 , SADIE J. RYAN 3,4,5 , SUSAN K. JACOBSON 6 AND ABE GOLDMAN 7 1 Environmental Studies Program, University of Colorado, UCB 397, Boulder, CO 80309, USA, 2 Department of Human Dimensions of Natural Resources, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1480, USA, 3 Department of Environmental and Forest Biology, State University of New York, College of Environmental Science and Forestry, 1 Forestry Drive, Syracuse, NY 13210, USA, 4 Center for Global Health and Translational Science, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, State University of New York Upstate Medical University, 2204 Weiskotten Hall, 750 East Adams Street, Syracuse, NY 13210, USA, 5 School of Life Sciences, College of Agriculture, Engineering, and Science, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Carbis Road, Scottsville 3209, South Africa, 6 University of Florida, Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, University of Florida, 303 Newins-Ziegler Hall, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA, and 7 University of Florida, Department of Geography, University of Florida, 3141 Turlington Hall, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA Date submitted: 27 June 2013; Date accepted: 30 January 2014 SUMMARY Traditionally, conservation programmes assume that local peoples’ support for parks depends on receiving material benefits from foreign exchange, tourism, development and employment. However, in the case of forest parks in Africa, where annual visitation can be small, local support may instead result from ecosystem services. Kibale National Park, a forest park in Uganda, demonstrates that people appreciate parks in ways that are seldom cited nor explored. Public perceptions of benefits accrued from Kibale were explored using two different sampling techniques: a community census and a geographic sample. In both surveys, over 50% of respondents perceived benefits provided by Kibale National Park, and over 90% of those who perceived benefits identified ecosystem services, whereas material benefits were cited less frequently. Multimodel selection on a suite of general linear models for the two different sampling methods provided a comparison of factors influencing perceptions of ecosystem services. Perceptions of Park benefits were influenced by geography, household and respondent characteristics, and perception of negative impacts from the Park. Perceived ecosystem benefits played an important role in the way the Park was viewed and valued locally. Parks have considerable impacts on neighbouring communities, and their long-term political and economic sustainability depends on managing these relationships well. Since local people have the most to gain or lose by conserving neighbouring parks, analyses that incorporate the perceptions of local people are essential to management and sustainability of park landscapes. Keywords: community census, ecosystem services, geographic sampling, Kibale National Park, parks ∗ Correspondence: Joel Hartter e-mail: joel.hartter@colorado.edu INTRODUCTION Ecosystem goods and services provided by natural ecosystems are essential for sustaining livelihoods (Costanza et al. 1997; Daily 1997), but much of their importance is viewed through an economic lens, where services are ‘valued’. Justification for conserving parks often includes ecosystem services, both the measurable values and the intangible or assumed values (Balmford et al. 2002). The ecosystem services that parks are purported to provide are often argued to benefit local people, but rarely are the services to local people assessed (Hein et al. 2006; Sodhi et al. 2010). Seldom are the perceptions of these services by local people taken into account in park management, despite their innate link to social systems and decisions (Fisher et al. 2009). Yet peoples’ perceptions about natural areas and their inherent ecosystem services is one of the critical components in the protection of natural resources (Alexander 2000; Chapin et al. 2010). To local people living near parks, ecosystem services can only be benefits if they are indeed perceived as such (Nepal & Spiteri 2011). Parks are the primary mechanisms used to protect tropical forest biodiversity (Terborgh et al. 2002), especially in regions with high human densities (Chapman & Peres 2001). In tropical forest parks, a major concern is that their sustainability is largely threatened by anthropogenic pressures (Cincotta et al. 2000; Laurence & Peres 2006) and has resulted in substantial declines in biodiversity (Laurance et al. 2012). Park establishment in East Africa has frequently been a contentious issue, often disenfranchising local people (Neumann 1998; Goldman 2011). Success of parks is strongly linked to the livelihoods of people living around them, especially those in areas of high human population density where park-neighbour interactions can happen with higher frequency and with more opportunities for unfavourable outcomes. Therefore, understanding how local people perceive a park and its benefits is critical in managing the park-people interface (Hartter & Goldman 2011). The perceived benefits of ecosystem services arising from parks can potentially influence conservation-related attitudes and behaviours and thus support for conservation (Sodhi et al. 2010). It has been demonstrated that providing ecosystem