Matti Kamppinen

Integrating biodiversity into decision making

The prominent theme in the debates concerning biodiversity has been the integration of biodiversity into social and economical processes. Integration has meant two different but related things: on one hand, biological phenomena have been contextualized in social and economical processes; on the other hand, biological issues have been incorporated into decision making. These two aspects of integration are related: knowing the context of biodiversity helps in assessing its worth for decision making. In what follows we will first look at the ramifications of decision making, on how to proceed when dealing with apparently incommensurable dimensions. Secondly, we will highlight some key issues in both biological and social impact assessment. Finally, we will propose a process model which takes into account the multiple aspects of biodiversity.

Corporate responsibility and systems thinking - tools for balanced risk management

Corporate responsibility amounts to taking into consideration conditions and effects that are systematically linked to corporate action. Systems thinking and its variants offer tools for understanding and managing the multitudes of conditions and effects that constitute corporate responsibility. We look first at the general tools of systems thinking, and then at a case of Finnish forest industry, and assessment of four particular systemic concepts that could be used to improve corporate environmental management: life cycle assessment, regionality, industrial ecosystem and ecosystem services. We conclude that systems thinking in one form or in another is a precondition for balanced economic, social and environmental management.

Risk landscapes in the era of social transition

Abstract The notions of risk and risk landscape provide useful tools for futures research, concerned as it is with the contingent, future courses of events. Our key concept, the risk landscape, refers to the network of possible worlds shaped by the beliefs, expectations and fears of human actors. We propose that so-called late modern times are characterised by changing risk landscapes, dominated by such risks as climate change. These new risks are highly theoretical, dependent on expert knowledge, and the distribution of costs and benefits related to them does not obey national or class boundaries.

Spatial information in ecosystem service assessment: data applicability in the cascade model context

Spatial information and geographical information systems (GISs) are widely used in ecosystem service research, but both the information and the methods need to be properly understood in order to make coherent analyses. We discuss the practical challenges of incorporating spatial data to ecosystem service assessment in an agricultural landscape and apply the ecosystem service cascade model to put different data into context. We review the prerequisites and practices for successful ‘ecosystem service GIS’ and provide a structured view of the information and data needed in the assessment of ecosystem services at a regional scale. Due to the heterogeneity of the spatial data, the regional characteristics should be considered in environmental decision-making through ethnographic research on local expertise to make optimal choices in using spatial information.

How to integrate socio-cultural dimensions into sustainable development: Amazonian case studies

The best means of integrating socio-cultural dimensions into the study and politics of sustainable development are through the ethnographic analysis of cultural models and patterns of behaviour. This is particularly mandatory in those contexts where the perception of reality is radically different from the Western point of view. We illustrate how the understanding of the Amazonian embodied thinking about relating to other subjects helps to comprehend their sustainable lifestyles and interaction within a natural environment. Through their bodies, the Amazonian native peoples and mestizos try to control and form a subjectivity that today is reflected in their striving to have better education, contemporary rites of passage and new skills that are appreciated when learned in their interaction with the dominant society. This means that the ‘traditional’ cultural models and patterns of behaviour are reproduced in interaction with new non-native actors, and the conditions for sustainable development consequently change.

The models of nature and the politics of sustainable development in the Peruvian Amazon

Mental models of nature provide orientation both for the executors of development projects as well as for the local participants. The dominating models are ones that draw a sharp line between nature and culture. We examine the foundations of these models, and propose that when encountering different kinds of models, precautions must be taken in order to enable negotiated sustainable development projects. We draw on our fieldwork in the Peruvian Amazon in order to illustrate the difference between distinct models of nature. We propose that sustainable development practices require negotiation processes, where different models of nature are fused into shared knowledge.

The transformation of time in the information society

This article assesses the extent to which social transformations involve changes in their socially constructed temporal profiles and draws distinctions between cyclical, linear, absolute and relative conceptions of time. It could be predicted that, in the information society, with the appropriation of information technology, our conceptions of time will again be radically transformed. However, the article refutes the claim that in the information society we are moving into timeless time where being online and real time are ideals everyone strives for, where modern computer‐based wars are fought in instants and where individual life projects have lost their temporal order. Instead, it concludes that time is transformed in the information society but not radically, and that our lives and related processes are temporally ordered even though the processes are speeded up and reshuffled thanks to the information technology and the production of goods and services it has enabled.

Evolution and culture: the Darwinian view on infosphere

Abstract This essay looks at the idea that human culture is an evolving system, a complex entity that undergoes evolutionary processes. This idea can also be expressed as follows: the cultural infosphere has the same mode of operation as the organic biosphere. There are three parts to the essay: it begins with some highlights from the history of evolutionary thinking; second, it explains the mechanisms of cultural selection; and third, it discusses the vision of the future provided by evolutionary thinking. The kind of evolutionary thinking focused upon is one that takes Charles Darwin seriously. The depth, reach and relevance of Darwinian thinking has been aptly exposed by Daniel C. Dennett, [1] and this essay assesses its worth in futures research.

Citizenship and ecological modernization in the information society

The notions of “information society” and “sustainable development” became the metaphorical catchwords for the idea of progress in the 1990’s. In the broadest sense they challenge the nihilistic post-modern claim concerning the end of all progress. They also invite us to compose new great stories, or master narratives, for alternative futures to emerge. On the other extreme of discussion and decision-making, the term “sustainable” has been replaced by “continuing” and the term “development” by “economic growth”. In the same circles, the notion of information society has come to signify the current means of information and communication technology that sustain the continuing economic growth. But there are several alternative meanings in between these two extremes. These multiple meanings can be found in economical, political, civil society or cultural discussions, and they are used for policy formulations and decision-making. We propose that basically, sustainable development is progressing welfare for all people within sustainable boundary conditions of living nature. That is, sustainable development is basically welfare with ecological sustainability. In the developing world the first priority problem of sustainable development is the lack of welfare and the presence of acute poverty. There sustainable development is not attainable and not even discussible if poverty is not fought against to begin with. In the industrialized world, the environmental meaning of the term development is dominant, but not quite in the plain ecological sense. In the industrialized world, the first priority is the maximum economic growth instead of environmental issues per se. It is claimed that continuing economic growth is a necessary condition for solving the problems of poverty and environmental issues. Sustainable development has been understood also as a development of new business, that is, eco-business. Civil societies and especially young citizens, as well as many researchers, prioritise sustainable well being of nature in a broad sense with the interests of the future generations. Information society appears in many different disguises as well, ranging from a vision of socially constructed network societies of the global world to a view of a new electronic market place, both based on application and innovations of new knowledge and of worldwide information infrastructures. The European view seems to be more inclined to the first meaning and the American view to the second. Let us take an example of Finland, which has been recently recognized as a suc-

Environmental technology in the sustainable use of agricultural ecosystem services: the relevance of farmers' mental models

We assessed the roles of automated environmental monitoring technology in the sustainable use of agricultural ecosystem services in the Karjaanjoki River catchment area in Finland by examining the mental models of 39 farmers participating in an environmental monitoring platform. The monitoring data served the farmers in their decision-making and risk management, in addition to holding a potential for environmental research and monitoring. The farmers’ main interests, however, lay in finding cost-efficient agricultural practices, not in environmental monitoring or management as such. Greater familiarisation of users may enhance the usability of technology. Fundamental functional deficiencies, however, can only be remedied by further development. Participatory planning and the study of farmers’ mental models should thus be applied already in the designing stage. In future, new technologies should be integrated into farmers’ mental models, so as to facilitate, complement and correct traditional models of sustainability.