Ranking ecosystem services delivered by trees in urban and rural areas

Policies and strategies for tree management and protection on a national, regional, and local level have not sufficiently considered differences between rural and urban areas. We used expert knowledge to compare rural and urban areas in a case study evaluating the relative importance of ecosystem services (ES) in policy development. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and focus group discussions were used to rank 17 ES, representing four classes of services: provisioning, regulating, habitat, and cultural. The results indicated that effective protection strategies, beyond simply increasing general tree cover, should consider specific benefits trees provide to local communities. We discuss the role of objective prioritization of ES delivered by trees in urban and rural areas and their consequences for decision-making processes. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13280-022-01722-2.

c) Share of pairs representing compliance level before (1) and after discussion (2) in each case study area in a ten-degree of consent scale. Green and yellow represent pairs with lower or higher agreement (1-5), red colors are pairs with-a lack of agreement (6-10).

Appendix S2 -Mini Focus Group
We applied mini focus group discussion between two AHP measurements, which is a qualitative, exploratory research method. Typically, a focus group brings together eight to ten qualified people for a face-to-face discussion of a particular topic. In bigger groups, interactions among the participants are less effective, and discussions can be hard to control (Edmunds 1999). However, in our research we applied a mini focus group (Edmunds 1999;Greenbaum 1998) which slightly differed from a standard focus group. Mini focus groups include from 4 to 6 participants and there is more emphasis on the topic and less on polling the participants, which is especially relevant when participants are experts with higher levels of knowledge on investigated topics. Therefore, it gave us greater observational opportunities and more chances to do hands-on testing than in larger groups. For each mini group we also did over-recruiting, as generally 8 or 9 qualified contacts should be recruited to guarantee a group size of 4 or 6 participants. Finally, we obtained two groups composed of 5 participants each.
Both mini focus group discussions lasted 4 hours each and were carried out using the same scenario.
The scenario was based on the Utrecht method (Bolt et deliberative polling (Fishkin 2018), etc., the Utrecht method allows relatively small groups of people to be involved, discussing a precise and feasible number of questions, building a fairly simple structure, and has been already combined with AHP in previous research (Shawahna 2018). On the other hand, similarly to the discussion tools mentioned, the Utrecht method enables us to reflect reasons to justify decision that are made, taking into account normative perspectives that various groups of stakeholders hold in practice.
The Utrecht method is guided by 8 questions focused on the professional and/or ethical issue in the discussed case, potential decisions which might be taken, comprehensiveness of relevant information, potential risks, perspectives of various stakeholders, and implementation of preferred action (please see original question list in Bolt et al. 2015). In our research, we adapted the original list of questions after pilot testing within the simulation of discussion in a 5 person research team. What do you see as the potential benefits (potential gains) from considering one benefit more important than the other? I remind you that we are particularly interested in the context of your municipality.
What do you see as the potential downsides (risks, costs) of considering one benefit as more important than the other? I remind you that we are particularly interested in the context of your municipality.
For which groups of inhabitants (residents, schools, entrepreneurs, or other key groups of so-called stakeholders) are these benefits the most important?
Let us now collect the most important arguments for and against considering a given benefit as more important.