Ecosystem services are benefits that natural and healthy ecosystems provide to people. Over the last decades, numerous analysts have tried to study rural environments through this lens. However, cultural ecosystem services have been largely overlooked in these studies. The aim of the paper of Bernadett Csurgó and Melanie K. Smith is therefore to explore how different actors in different rural areas perceive the ‘value’ of cultural ecosystem services. To do this, the analysts compare two regions in Hungary: Kalocsa and Őrség. 

 

The full study is available HERE.

 

According to the definition of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA), cultural ecosystem services (CESs) are defined as the “non-material benefits people obtain from ecosystems through spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, reflection and aesthetic experiences”. The main components of the concept are cultural heritage, sense of place, recreation, ecotourism and aesthetic, inspirational, educational, spiritual and religious experiences. In this way, CESs not only provide socio-cultural and economic benefits but can also form the basis for the development of regional identities.

In order to explore the significance of CESs, the study examines two rural areas in Hungary (Kalocsa and Őrség). The analysts conducted a total of 83 semi-structured interviews with representatives of local governments, tourism entrepreneurs, employees of cultural institutions and members of civil society organisations, among others. After coding the interviews, they determined the economic, social and symbolic importance of the above-mentioned components of the CESs in both selected areas. The results of the research are summarised in the table below.

Category of CESs	Kalocsa			Őrség
	Economic value	Social value	Symbolic value	Economic value	Social value	Symbolic value
Cultural heritage	Moderate	Strong	Strong	Strong	Weak	Strong
Sense of place	Weak	Strong	Strong	Strong	Weak	Strong
Aesthetic	Moderate	Strong	Strong	Strong	Moderate	Strong
Inspiration	Moderate	Moderate	Moderate	Strong	Weak	Weak
Recreation and ecoturism	Moderate	Moderate	Weak	Strong	Moderate	Strong
Educational	Weak	Strong	Strong	Weak	Moderate	Strong
Spiritual and religious	Weak	Strong	Moderate	Weak	Weak	Moderate

Based on the recorded interviews, it can be said that in Kalocsa, cultural heritage plays a key role in social and symbolic value creation. Folk art, folk dance, living traditions, local festivals and local gastronomy as preserved traditions define a sense of place and drive aesthetic and inspirational experience, recreation and education. Highlighting the natural beauty of the area is conspicuously absent from local narratives and tourism is neither emphasised. The diminishing role of tourism is further reinforced by the fact that the Kalocsa motif and the Kalocsa paprika have become intertwined with Hungarian national identity during the 19th and 20th centuries, thus appropriating the cultural heritage of the region.

The wave of immigration in the 1980s and 1990s played a decisive role in shaping the local narrative of Őrség. After the system change of 1989, a large number of the urban upper-middle settled in the region class in search of a ‘rural idyll’. The newcomers were the main drivers of local tourism and the creation of local civic organisations. As a result, cultural heritage and tourism have become the main drivers of identity in the region including local customs, building shapes, settlement structures and local gastronomy, as well as the beauty of untouched nature (as a source of inspiration and aesthetic experience). The main lesson learnt from the case of the Őrség is that rural tourism development can be based not only on old local traditions but also on an (often idealised) sense of place constructed by newcomers.

To conclude, the study claims that cultural heritage is pivotal to the narratives of both studied regions. The various folk customs, folk art products and traditions appear as the basis for a sense of place, aesthetics, inspiration, recreation and education. According to the conducted interviews, social and symbolic values play a more important role than environmental values even in Őrség where the ‘rural idyll’ partly rests upon the nostalgia for untouched nature. Although the research focuses on only two regions in Hungary, its findings provide important lessons for CESs research and rural studies.