Bryan G. Norton

Where are cultural and social in ecosystem services? A framework for constructive engagement

A focus on ecosystem services (ES) is seen as a means for improving decisionmaking. In the research to date, the valuation of the material contributions of ecosystems to human well-being has been emphasized, with less attention to important cultural ES and nonmaterial values. This gap persists because there is no commonly accepted framework for eliciting less tangible values, characterizing their changes, and including them alongside other services in decisionmaking. Here, we develop such a framework for ES research and practice, addressing three challenges: (1) Nonmaterial values are ill suited to characterization using monetary methods; (2) it is difficult to unequivocally link particular changes in socioecological systems to particular changes in cultural benefits; and (3) cultural benefits are associated with many services, not just cultural ES. There is no magic bullet, but our framework may facilitate fuller and more socially acceptable integrations of ES information into planning and management.

Opinion: Why protect nature? Rethinking values and the environment

A cornerstone of environmental policy is the debate over protecting nature for humans’ sake (instrumental values) or for nature’s (intrinsic values) (1). We propose that focusing only on instrumental or intrinsic values may fail to resonate with views on personal and collective well-being, or “what is right,” with regard to nature and the environment. Without complementary attention to other ways that value is expressed and realized by people, such a focus may inadvertently promote worldviews at odds with fair and desirable futures. It is time to engage seriously with a third class of values, one with diverse roots and current expressions: relational values. By doing so, we reframe the discussion about environmental protection, and open the door to new, potentially more productive policy approaches.

Ecosystem Services and Beyond: Using Multiple Metaphors to Understand Human–Environment Relationships

Ecosystem services research has been focused on the ways that humans directly benefit from goods and services, and economic valuation techniques have been used to measure those benefits. We argue that, although it is appropriate in some cases, this focus on direct use and economic quantification is often limiting and can detract from environmental research and effective management, in part by crowding out other understandings of human—environment relationships. Instead, we make the case that the systematic consideration of multiple metaphors of such relationships in assessing social—ecological systems will foster better understanding of the many ways in which humans relate to, care for, and value ecosystems. Where it is possible, we encourage a deliberative approach to ecosystem management whereby ecosystem researchers actively engage conservationists and local resource users to make explicit, through open deliberation, the types of metaphors salient to their conservation problem.

Scale and Biodiversity Policy: A Hierarchical Approach

There exists a broad consensus supporting the protection of biological diversity; but the exact meaning of this consensus for policy is not clear. In the United States, for example, the Endangered Species Act emphasizes protection of species. But this emphasis has led to the question: Since approximately 99% of all species that have existed on earth are now extinct, how can it be so urgent that we reduce anthropogenic species extinctions? The standard answer to this question — that extinction itself is not bad, but rather that the accelerated rate and broadened scale of extinctions is unacceptable — likewise raises more questions than answers. One might ask, what would be an “acceptable” rate of extinctions? If species are not sacrosact, what then is the proper target of protection?

The Challenges of Incorporating Cultural Ecosystem Services into Environmental Assessment

The ecosystem services concept is used to make explicit the diverse benefits ecosystems provide to people, with the goal of improving assessment and, ultimately, decision-making. Alongside material benefits such as natural resources (e.g., clean water, timber), this concept includes—through the ‘cultural’ category of ecosystem services—diverse non-material benefits that people obtain through interactions with ecosystems (e.g., spiritual inspiration, cultural identity, recreation). Despite the longstanding focus of ecosystem services research on measurement, most cultural ecosystem services have defined measurement and inclusion alongside other more ‘material’ services. This gap in measurement of cultural ecosystem services is a product of several perceived problems, some of which are not real problems and some of which can be mitigated or even solved without undue difficulty. Because of the fractured nature of the literature, these problems continue to plague the discussion of cultural services. In this paper we discuss several such problems, which although they have been addressed singly, have not been brought together in a single discussion. There is a need for a single, accessible treatment of the importance and feasibility of integrating cultural ecosystem services alongside others.

IMPROVING ECOLOGICAL COMMUNICATION: THE ROLE OF ECOLOGISTS IN ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY FORMATION

This paper begins with the premise that communication regarding ecological risk and ecologically based management decisions should be improved. Failures of communication are attributed to lack of terms, indicators, and measures that are based in ecological science, but that are also associated with important social values. I show that, especially in the area of wetlands management, current scientific and policy discourse has failed to provide adequate linkage between descriptive characteristics of natural systems and changes in social values associated with them. As a result, wetlands policy is being implemented without analysis of social values affected by policies such as wetland banking and mitigation efforts. Ecologists have contributed to this unfortunate situation because they are reluctant to mix values issues with scientific study. I also show that ecologists are slow to pick up on signals flowing from policy discourse to ecological science; this is illustrated by the fact that ecologists often fa...

Ethical Considerations in On-Ground Applications of the Ecosystem Services Concept

The ecosystem services (ES) concept is one of the main avenues for conveying societys dependence on natural ecosystems. On-ground applications of the concept are now widespread and diverse and include its use as a communication tool, for policy guidance and priority setting, and for designing economic instruments for conservation. Each application raises ethical considerations beyond traditional controversies related to the monetary valuation of nature. We review ethical considerations across major on-ground applications and group them into the following categories: anthropocentric framing, economic metaphor, monetary valuation, commodification, sociocultural impact, changes in motivations, and equity implications. Different applications of the ES concept raise different suites of ethical issues, and we propose methods to address the issues most relevant to each application. We conclude that the ES concept should be considered as only one among various alternative approaches to valuing nature and that reliance on economic metaphors can exclude other motivations for protecting ecosystems.

Environmental Values and Adaptive Management

The trend in environmental management toward more adaptive, community-based, and holistic approaches will require new approaches to environmental valuation. In this paper, we offer a new valuation approach, one that embodies the core principles of adaptive management, which is experimental, multi-scalar, and place-based. In addition, we use hierarchy theory to incorporate spatial and temporal variability of natural systems into a multi-scalar management model. Our approach results in the consideration of multiple values within community-based ecosystem management, rather than an attempt to maximise a single variable such as economic efficiency. We then offer two heuristics - one procedural and one evaluative - to guide a community toward shared goals, and to develop indicators to measure progress toward these goals. We illustrate our approach by application to environmental and developmental decisions in the Southern Appalachians.

Towards a Knowledge‐Based Ethic for Lethal Control of Nuisance Wildlife

Abstract Managers of nuisance wildlife have to rely largely on using lethal methods until such time as nonlethal techniques, such as fertility control, become universally available for a wide range of species. Unfortunately, use of lethal tools has met with opposition from animal welfare and animal rights proponents. Although research has addressed some of the more tractable welfare concerns (e.g., making traps more humane), less tractable ethical issues associated with the justification of killing wildlife remain unresolved. Monistic welfare models or rights-based models have been proposed as ways of addressing these issues, but those that concentrate on the cognitive and conative capabilities of individual animals fail to resolve the ecological and social complexities involved in management of nuisance wildlife. Solutions need to recognize and accept the diversity of values (i.e., within a pluralistic strategy) as well as the uncertainty inherent in many of the systems being managed. Thus, when uncertainty is high in managing wildlife–resource systems, we propose the only ethically defensible action is to apply a knowledge-based ethic that ensures future actions will be carried out with increased understanding. Such an ethic can be made functional within an adaptive management framework that has, as its first tenet, the need to learn and reduce uncertainty. Failure to maximize learning in the presence of uncertainty has the potential to result in increased opposition to even soundly justified operations to manage nuisance wildlife.

Biodiversity and environmental values: in search of a universal earth ethic

While biodiversity protection has become a widely accepted goal of environmental protectionists, no such agreement exists regarding why it is important. Two, competing theories of natural value – here called ‘Economism’ and ‘Intrinsic Value Theory’ – are often cited to support the goal. Environmentalists, who have recently proposed the articulation of a universal ‘Earth Charter’ to express the shared values humans derive from nature, have cited both of these theories as support for biodivesity protection. Unfortunately these theories, which are expressed as polar opposites, do not work well together and the question arises: is there a shared value that humans place on nature? It is argued that these two value theories share four questionable assumptions: (1) a sharp distinction between ‘intrinsic’ and ‘instrumental’ value; (2) an entity orientation; (3) moral monism; and (4) placeless evaluation. If these four assumptions are denied, an alternative value system emerges which recognizes a continuum of ways humans value nature, values processes rather than only entities, is pluralistic, and values biodiversity in place. An alternative theory of value, which emphasizes protecting processes rather than protecting objects, and which values nature for the creativity of its processes, is proposed as a more attractive theory for expressing the universal values of nature that should motivate an Earth Charter and the goal of biodiversity protection.