Time for a new brand of ES engagement

Background/Question/Methods: Many scientists see the concept of ecosystem services (ES) as a vehicle and forum for integrating their research more effectively into public discourse and decision-making. The concept's popularity has been rising dramatically, with uptake in a wide diversity of fields and contexts. But for all the hoopla, what substantial changes in management and policy have been accomplished through ES research, and what hope is there that that such research will yield the kinds of transformative changes needed for sustainable trajectories?

In this talk, I will review the major approaches that ES researchers have taken to engaging with management and policy, and analyze these along the following dimensions: (1) the feasibility of science to provide the knowledge needed; (2) the approaches to engagement required, and the extent to which researchers are taking these; (3) the feasibility of policy and management to integrate science in the way imagined (given social, political, and economic realities illustrated via anecdotal examples); and (4) the implicit locus of responsibility for social-ecological stewardship. Synthesizing across these, I assess the opportunity for each approach to foster sustainable trajectories.

Results/Conclusions: I found four broad classes of ES engagement: intended contribution to (a) diffuse awareness-raising, (b) cost-benefit analysis, (c) spatial planning, (d) payments for ES. Analyzed across the four dimensions above, each of these approaches faces substantial—and perhaps insurmountable—obstacles to fostering sustainable trajectories. Most researchers are only pursuing outreach and scientific engagement with ES in superficial and opportunistic ways, and even the deeper engagement efforts face key obstacles relatively absent from the literature.

Based on this analysis, I argue that it’s time to develop substantively different approaches to engagement about ES. I propose one such possibility, which may offer novel opportunities for tangible changes. Through a case study called “Project Beef,” I will illustrate an approach to scientific engagement involving whole supply chains, which bear the responsibility for resource-use and so for degradation and conservation of ES. I will discuss several obstacles facing the supply-chain approach and reflect on its opportunities to foster large-scale transformative changes toward sustainability.