Understanding community perceptions of forest ecosystem services to motivate REDD+ actions: A case study of Jalisco, Mexico

This study aims to examine community perceptions of ECAs (Farmer Field Schools) in Jalisco, Mexico, to understand how participatory learning contributes to sustainable local practices and climate adaptation. FFS are bottom-up learning models that test, validate, and integrate local knowledge and external scientific ideas are tested, validated, and integrated within the context of the local ecosystem and community-based problem analysis. They can be supported by the MESMIS (Framework for the Evaluation of Natural Resource Management Systems Incorporating Sustainability Indicators), because both share the same agroecological principles based on participation and sustainability. To achieve the objective of this study, a survey with structured and semi-structured questions was administered to a population representing only 20% of the sample obtained, so the results are partial but offer important insights into ECAs in the study area. The main findings indicate that communities perceive ECAs as spaces where they can develop and reinforce their experiences and interests to achieve improvements in production, silvopastoralism, animal health, and agroforestry systems, among others. In addition, it was observed that MESMIS allows for the participatory evaluation of sustainable practices in communities, and both models provide findings for understanding the complexity of agroecological systems, from local understanding to the effects of that understanding on sustainability. This study has practical implications because it analyzes shared and improved experiences in livelihoods based on a learning field system that has generated local benefits. It also provides valuable findings on the benefits of participating in a learning field system based on sustainability indicators that can be replicated in other areas with similar characteristics in the future.