Files
Abstract
Societal expectations from rural lands have traditionally been focussed on the production of food and
fibre. Yet the perception of rural areas is changing and they are now seen in many instances to be
capable of delivering multiple functions or non-commodity outputs including land conservation and
the preservation of biodiversity, contributing to the sustainable management of renewable natural
resources and enhancing the socio-economic viability of many areas (OECD, 2001). The overall
multifunctionality is constrained or favoured by biophysical and socio-economic drivers. As these
types of drivers vary spatially and temporally, so does the functionality of the landscape and
heterogeneous patterns emerge. Associated with multiple functions at a single location are a variety of
pressures which can manifest themselves as conflict between interacting land uses (Gimona and van
der Horst, 2007; Willemen et al., 2010). One such conflict in rural zones is that between agricultural
use and residential use.