We present a study in the context of Zanzibar islands, Tanzania, where local stakeholder knowledge is crucial in solving land management challenges in the tropical forests being extensively used for subsistence purposes. Landscape service concept (derived from ecosystem services) is used as a theoretical framework to capture and include knowledge from the local communities, and involve them, in the process of assessing the development of the multifunctional cultural landscape.

The underlying assumption is that local people possess valuable data on different type of landscape services. This is partly direct use of natural resources such as subsistence use, partly immaterial and value-based knowledge relating e.g. aesthetics and sacred places in the landscape. As addition to traditional ecological or economic evaluation, participatory mapping of landscape services captures the socio-cultural value domain of these services. Mapping of landscape services with a participatory GIS (PGIS) method creates local knowledge, which emerges from environmental experience, into geographical context and enables place-based assessment of landscape services.

The presentation is based on recently collected data on community stakeholder landscape services using a combination of semi-structured interview questions completed with participatory mapping on aerial photograph. The results indicate the geographical patterns, distribution and clustering of the different landscape services and creates the individual stakeholder perception of the landscape into multiple perceptions represented in geographical form. Based on the spatial intensity of each service, a landscape level characterization identifies the focal areas to target resource management.

The landscape level social data can be analysed together with the land cover and land use change trajectories. Geographical data of stakeholder landscape services together with land cover change analysis data will be the source material for further integrated assessment of forest resources and targeted management. Aim is to identify the key elements, both material and immaterial, that contribute to sustainable forest development and community well-being.