Enhancing the socio-cultural valuation of ecosystem services in Mountain animal production: a case study from piedmont’s alpine valley (North-west Italy)

The Italian Alpine region has a long-standing connection between the binary system of the tourism industry and silvopastoral sectors that offer different economic, ecological, and cultural benefits. This research investigates the perception of ecosystem services (ES) provided by mountain animal production among tourists in a specific mountain area (Upper Ellero Valley, North-West Italy). A total of 216 visitors were surveyed online between June and October 2022. The questionnaire was designed to explore the following aspects: (1) interviewees' socio-demographic characteristics; (2) the perceived impacts of alpine livestock systems on ecosystem services, including also the animal welfare variable; (3) the heterogeneity of hikers in response to their perception of ES and (4) the assessment of the individuals' opinion towards selected valorisation strategies of the herd-grazing production system. The responses about the ES perception were analysed using the Principal Component Analysis. The new principal components were employed to cluster the sample in the function of individuals' perceptions of ecosystem services. Finally, the Correspondence Analysis was adopted to analyse the association between the three hikers' groups and the proposed strategies for mountain area valorisation. This research revealed a positive perception of visitors towards the impact of herds on the ES. In addition, different opinions emerged among clusters related to the valorisation strategies adoptable for mountain area development exploiting the positive connection between animal farming and the environment. These findings could have concrete implications on the definition of social and economic development strategies for the alpine mountain valleys, representing an important source of production for national mountain pasture livestock farming.Animal production provides ecosystem services for mountain area development;Hikers have different perception towards ecosystems services, including the animal welfare;The three obtained clusters of hikers perceived differently the valorisation strategies for increase agro-eco-tourism.