Ecotourism plays a vital role in both economic development and depending on the scale, it can also aid environmental conservation. Ecotourism planning often considers culture‐based and nature‐based tourism separately, failing to recognize the synergies between them, with the potential to market locations as biocultural destinations. Using Colombia as a case study, we created metrics of taxonomic biological diversity as measured by vertebrate species richness (including birds, mammals, freshwater fishes, reptiles and amphibians) and institutionalized cultural richness (by counting the number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage sites, museums, endemic music festivals, Afro‐Colombian Territories and Indigenous Reserves) and evaluated the spatial correlations between them. To determine biocultural ecotourism potential, we evaluated whether biocultural richness was accessible and mapped potential biocultural ecotourism supply. By mapping areas of sports fisheries, birdwatching destinations, national park annual visitors and airport arrivals we also estimated spatial demand. We also analysed the difference between biocultural ecotourism supply and demand to assess the realized and untapped potential for biocultural destinations. While biocultural richness is high in the Amazon, Pacific and Caribbean regions, we found that there are no win‐win‐win locations where culture, species richness and accessibility are all high. Areas with great potential for biocultural ecotourism development largely coincide with designated Indigenous Reserves and Afro‐Colombian Territories. Our paper suggests that Colombia is currently safeguarding its biocultural capital and that it remains inaccessible to tourists. This study underscores the power of integrating cultural and biological variables to reshape the ecotourism sector. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Human activity has led to degradation of the natural environment, with far-reaching impacts for society and the economy, sparking new conceptual framings for how people interact with, and depend upon, the environment. The bioeconomy and natural capital concepts both blend economics and natural sciences and propose new interdisciplinary, environmental sustainability framings. Despite this similarity, the two concepts are rarely applied together. This paper applies a natural capital lens to the bioeconomy at three different levels: environmental sustainability framings; experts’ principles for a sustainable bioeconomy; and a case study of EU policy. We first construct an integrated cascade model that combines the unrealised potential of bioresources alongside unrecognised environmental services that tend to be systematically undervalued or ignored. Subsequently, we present five cornerstones identified from the sustainable bioeconomy-related literature from a natural capital perspective and highlight avenues of complementarity. The paper concludes with a policy case study of the EU Bioeconomy Strategy through a natural capital lens. There is evidence that the EU strategy has become increasingly aligned with the natural capital concept, but there is scope for further integration. The natural capital concept and related toolbox is an asset for the future bioeconomy to ensure it meets its environmentally sound and ecologically conscious objectives.

Experiences gained through in person (in-situ) interactions with ecosystems provide cultural ecosystem services. These services are difficult to assess because they are non-material, vary spatially and have strong perceptual characteristics. Data obtained from social media can provide spatially-explicit information regarding some in-situ cultural ecosystem services by serving as a proxy for visitation. These data can identify environmental characteristics (natural, human and built capital) correlated with visitation and, therefore, the types of places used for in-situ environmental interactions. A range of spatial models can be applied in this way that vary in complexity and can provide information for ecosystem service assessments. We deployed four models (global regression, local regression, maximum entropy and the InVEST recreation model) to the same case-study area, County Galway, Ireland, to compare spatial models. A total of 6,752 photo-user-days (PUD) (a visitation metric) were obtained from Flickr. Data describing natural, human and built capital were collected from national databases. Results showed a blend of capital types correlated with PUD suggesting that local context, including biophysical traits and accessibility, are relevant for in-situ cultural ecosystem service flows. Average trends included distance to the coast and elevation as negatively correlated with PUD, while the presence of major roads and recreational sites, population density and habitat diversity were positively correlated. Evidence of local relationships, especially town distance, were detected using geographic weighted regression. Predicted hotspots for visitation included urban areas in the east of the region and rural, coastal areas with major roads in the west. We conclude by presenting a guide for researchers and practitioners developing cultural ecosystem service spatial models using data from social media that considers data coverage, landscape heterogeneity, computational resources, statistical expertise and environmental context.

Tourism plays a vital role in both economic development and depending on the scale, it can also aid environmental conservation. Tourism planning often considers culture-based and nature-based tourism separately, failing to recognize the synergies between them, with the potential to market locations as biocultural destinations. Using Colombia as a case study, we created metrics of taxonomic biological diversity as measured by vertebrate species richness (including birds, mammals, freshwater fishes, reptiles, and amphibians) and institutionalized cultural richness (by counting the number of UNESCO world heritage sites, intangible cultural heritage sites, museums, endemic music festivals, Afro-Colombian territories, and Indigenous reserves), and evaluated the spatial correlations between them. To determine biocultural tourism potential, we evaluated whether biocultural richness was accessible, and mapped potential biocultural tourism supply. By mapping areas of sports fisheries, birdwatching destinations, and airport arrivals we also estimated spatial demand. We also analyzed the difference between demand and supply to assess the realized and untapped potential for biocultural destinations. While biocultural richness is high in the Amazon, Pacific, and Caribbean regions, we found that there are no win-win-win locations where culture, species richness, and accessibility are all high. Areas with great potential for biocultural tourism development largely coincide with designated Indigenous reserves and Afro-Colombian territories. This study underscores the power of integrating cultural and biological variables to reshape the tourism sector. Our paper offers practical recommendations for policymakers, conservation organizations, and local communities seeking to create transformative and inclusive tourism experiences.