Not impossible: Integrating ecological considerations and cultural values into decision-making

Background/Question/Methods

Focusing on ecosystem services (ES) is seen as a means of improving decision-making. Research to date has emphasized valuation of material contributions of ecosystems to human well-being (through e.g., clean water, agricultural crops, reduced flood risk). Much less attention has been paid to characterizing how important ‘cultural’/non-material values – such as cultural heritage, identity, and artistic and spiritual inspiration, might be affected by ecological change. This gap persists because it is difficult to identify, quantify, and integrate non-material values in decision-making. This talk will focus on a framework for ES research to contribute to planning and management, which was developed by an international team of scientists and managers. The framework, based on the team’s experiences and a review of diverse literature, includes the core components necessary to meet three challenges: (i) non-material values are ill-suited to characterization in monetary terms; (ii) changes in non-material benefits are not easily attributed to ecological change; and (iii) non-material benefits are simultaneously produced by many ES, which complicates the separate valuation and summation of ES benefits.

Results/Conclusions

Our proposed framework offers assistance to three audiences: (1) researchers seeking to understand how their social and/or ecological research can contribute to ecosystem-based management and spatial planning; (2) decision-makers seeking to engage research more effectively in light of the many human benefits associated with ecosystems; and (3) stakeholders concerned with the relative inattention to certain benefits (often intangible ones) in decision-making. Our framework provides one way to document these benefits, so that decision-makers “can’t say they didn’t know,” to quote a pilot-study interviewee. There is no magic bullet, but our framework—to be published in BioScience—may facilitate fuller and more socially acceptable integrations of ES information into planning and management.