Public perception of ecosystem and social services produced by Sardinia extensive dairy sheep farming systems

Dairy sheep farming systems provide a great range of ecosystem services (ESs) and social services (SSs). These are Agro-pastoral Secondary Outputs (ASOs), the promotion of which can help the survival of the systems and the rural regions in which they exist. However, little attention has been paid to understanding which ASOs are recognized by the public, which is the first step to adequately promote them. This study first aims to review previous literature on ASOs relating to livestock in general and dairy sheep farming systems in particular. The literature review, conducted according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) framework, revealed significant gaps. Second, the research provides evidence of public perception of ASOs of a given dairy sheep sector—i.e. that developed on the region of Sardinia (Italy)—via a questionnaire distributed to a composite sample of 525 stakeholders. We found that cultural and landscape services are the most appreciated services. Multiple correspondence analysis suggests that appreciation of a specific secondary output would imply the appreciation of all the other outputs. Furthermore, we ran a set of logit regressions where each ASO was related to several socio-economic variables. Findings showed, among others, that the ‘subjective knowledge’ of the Sardinian agro-pastoral reality positively and significantly affects appreciation of all the ASOs. Several implications for practitioners, academics and policymakers are derived from these findings.