Frequent access to ecosystem services leads to increased understanding of pollination

Abstract

The perception of people on conservation actions affect the efficiency of environmental policies, since it impacts the success of its mplementation. We tested whether the perception of people on pollination change among productive and consumption sectors, and if it is influenced by the degree of schooling, using the production-chain of the passion fruit as study model, which demands crossed-pollination provided by large-sized bees. The perception of people along five sectors was evaluated from production to consumption, interviewing 162 people with a questionnaire on passion-fruit pollination. With a correspondence analysis, we correlated each production and consumption sector to the knowledge about pollination presented by them. The understands of each sector was related to the type of education that they received previously (formal/scholar vs. non-scholar, including non-formal education and courses) through a Kruskal-Wallis test. Sellers of inputs and farmers were correlated to perceive bees in a positive way, know more correct concepts about pollination and bee species, and praised large-bees in agriculture, compared to other sectors. Consumers perceived bees in a negative way, know fewer correct concepts on pollination, and associated them with food and not with ecosystem services. However, consumption sectors acknowledged bees as valuable and supported initiatives for pollinator-friendly agriculture. The higher degree of schooling lead to more knowledge on pollination among the sellers, but not in other sectors. In general, familiarity to the subject provided by experience and by non-scholar education increased the understanding about pollination. The insertion of ecosystem services in the daily life of people shall contribute to fixate knowledge and change the negative perceptions about ecosystem services and promote conservation policies.