Matthew Agarwala

Accounting for the impact of conservation on human well-being

Conservationists are increasingly engaging with the concept of human well-being to improve the design and evaluation of their interventions. Since the convening of the influential Sarkozy Commission in 2009, development researchers have been refining conceptualizations and frameworks to understand and measure human well-being and are starting to converge on a common understanding of how best to do this. In conservation, the term human well-being is in widespread use, but there is a need for guidance on operationalizing it to measure the impacts of conservation interventions on people. We present a framework for understanding human well-being, which could be particularly useful in conservation. The framework includes 3 conditions; meeting needs, pursuing goals, and experiencing a satisfactory quality of life. We outline some of the complexities involved in evaluating the well-being effects of conservation interventions, with the understanding that well-being varies between people and over time and with the priorities of the evaluator. Key challenges for research into the well-being impacts of conservation interventions include the need to build up a collection of case studies so as to draw out generalizable lessons; harness the potential of modern technology to support well-being research; and contextualize evaluations of conservation impacts on well-being spatially and temporally within the wider landscape of social change. Pathways through the smog of confusion around the term well-being exist, and existing frameworks such as the Well-being in Developing Countries approach can help conservationists negotiate the challenges of operationalizing the concept. Conservationists have the opportunity to benefit from the recent flurry of research in the development field so as to carry out more nuanced and locally relevant evaluations of the effects of their interventions on human well-being. Consideración del Impacto de la Conservación sobre el Bienestar Humano Resumen Los conservacionistas cada vez más se comprometen con el concepto del bienestar humano para mejorar el diseño y la evaluación de sus intervenciones. Desde la convención de la influyente Comisión Sarkozy en 2009, los investigadores del desarrollo han estado refinando las conceptualizaciones y los marcos de trabajo para entender y medir el bienestar humano y están comenzando a convergir con un entendimiento común de cuál es la mejor forma de hacer esto. En la conservación el término bienestar humano tiene un uso amplio, pero existe la necesidad de la orientación en su operación para medir los impactos de las intervenciones de la conservación sobre la gente. Presentamos un marco de trabajo para entender el bienestar humano que podría ser útil particularmente en la conservación. El marco de trabajo incluye tres condiciones: cumplir con las necesidades, perseguir objetivos y experimentar una calidad satisfactoria de vida. Resumimos algunas de las complejidades involucradas en la evaluación de los efectos del bienestar de las intervenciones de la conservación con el entendimiento de que el bienestar varía entre la gente, en el tiempo y con las prioridades del evaluador. Los retos clave para la investigación de los impactos del bienestar de las intervenciones de la conservación incluyen la necesidad de crear una colección de estudios de caso para trazar lecciones generalizables: hacer uso del potencial de la tecnología moderna para apoyar la investigación del bienestar; y contextualizar espacial y temporalmente las evaluaciones de los impactos de la conservación sobre el bienestar dentro del marco más amplio del cambio social. Existen caminos que atraviesan la confusión que rodea al término bienestar, y los marcos de trabajo existentes, como el del acercamiento de Bienestar en Países en Desarrollo, pueden ayudar a los conservacionistas a negociar los obstáculos de la operación del concepto. Los conservacionistas tienen la oportunidad de beneficiarse del frenesí reciente de investigación en el campo del desarrollo para así realizar evaluaciones más matizadas y relevantes localmente de los efectos de sus intervenciones sobre el bienestar humano.

Assessing the Relationship Between Human Well-being and Ecosystem Services: A Review of Frameworks

Focusing on the most impoverished populations, we critically review and synthesise key themes from dominant frameworks for assessing the relationship between well-being and ecosystem services in developing countries. This requires a differentiated approach to conceptualising well-being that appropriately reflects the perspectives of the poorest-those most directly dependent on ecosystem services, and their vulnerability to external and policy-driven environmental change. The frameworks analysed draw upon environmental sciences, economics, psychology, sociology, and anthropology, and were selected on the basis of their demonstrated or potential ability to illustrate the relationship between environmental change and human well-being, as well as their prevalence in real world applications. Thus, the synthesis offered here is informed by the various theoretical, methodological, and hermeneutical contributions from each field to the notion of well-being. The review highlights several key dimensions that should be considered by those interested in understanding and assessing the impact of environmental change on the well-being of the worlds poorest people: the importance of interdisciplinary consideration of well-being, the need for frameworks that integrate subjective and objective aspects of well-being, and the central importance of context and relational aspects of well-being. The review is of particular interest to those engaged in the post-2015 development agenda.

Spatially explicit integrated modeling and economic valuation of climate driven land use change and its indirect effects.

We present an integrated model of the direct consequences of climate change on land use, and the indirect effects of induced land use change upon the natural environment. The model predicts climate-driven shifts in the profitability of alternative uses of agricultural land. Both the direct impact of climate change and the induced shift in land use patterns will cause secondary effects on the water environment, for which agriculture is the major source of diffuse pollution. We model the impact of changes in such pollution on riverine ecosystems showing that these will be spatially heterogeneous. Moreover, we consider further knock-on effects upon the recreational benefits derived from water environments, which we assess using revealed preference methods. This analysis permits a multi-layered examination of the economic consequences of climate change, assessing the sequence of impacts from climate change through farm gross margins, land use, water quality and recreation, both at the individual and catchment scale.

Monitoring local well-being in environmental interventions: a consideration of practical trade-offs

Within the field of environmental management and conservation, the concept of well-being is starting to gain traction in monitoring the socio-economic and cultural impact of interventions on local people. Here we consider the practical trade-offs policy makers and practitioners must navigate when utilizing the concept of well-being in environmental interventions. We first review current concepts of well-being before considering the need to balance the complexity and practical applicability of the definition used and to consider both positive and negative components of well-being. A key determinant of how well-being is operationalized is the identity of the organization wishing to monitor it. We describe the trade-offs around the external and internal validity of different approaches to measuring well-being and the relative contributions of qualitative and quantitative information to understanding well-being. We explore how these trade-offs may be decided as a result of a power struggle between stakeholders. Well-being is a complex, multi-dimensional, dynamic concept that cannot be easily defined and measured. Local perspectives are often missed during the project design process as a result of the more powerful voices of national governments and international NGOs, so for equity and local relevance it is important to ensure these perspectives are represented at a high level in project design and implementation.