Institutionalizing environmental valuation into policy: Lessons from 7 Indonesian agencies

Abstract

Monetary valuation of the environment is increasingly embedded in policy. Despite broad claims that valuation is policy-relevant, there is widespread frustration that it has not widely improved environmental outcomes, that it obscures many other types of values, and presents unintended consequences. We argue that this is, in part, because of a tendency to overlook the mechanics of how valuation tools and data are embedded into the institutions (regulations, norms, rules, schemes) that mediate decision-making. Discussions of how valuation engages with policy are often anecdotal and rarely systematic. This manuscript responds with a structured analysis of valuation within 7 Indonesian government institutions. By analyzing the legislative provisions that deal with valuation within each agency, we explore the challenges of institutionalizing valuation into policy. We consider the difficulties of: defining what is (and isn't) valuable, specifying methods, and identifying policy objectives. We found broad gaps and inconsistencies in the aims, definitions, methods, and treatment of non-market goods and services. and identify a need for broadened thinking about the role of valuation data within everyday environmental governance, including how it is codified and operationalized. To this end, we provide a framework of the "cascade" relationship between environmental management, ecosystem goods and services, human wellbeing, and their relationship to environmental governance, which uncovers the mechanics of how valuation can inform decision-making via different institutional arrangements. We call for a critical, yet also more pragmatic and fieldbased interrogation, of how and why valuation is conducted by decision-makers, in order to improve our understanding of its social and environmental implications. * The Ministries of Environment and Forest have been merged into a single agency in late 2014, although their governing legislation remains separate. ** Under the WAVES program, BAPPENAS will work alongside BPS.

Progress toward Equitably Managed Protected Areas in Aichi Target 11: A Global Survey

“…The second challenge refers to the commensurability of the social equity criteria assessed (i.e., the possibility to measure them through common metrics). Different local stakeholders within a given PA and the same ones in different historical, social, political and institutional contexts could hold different views about how much engagement is enough to deem a process equitable (Phelps et al 2017 ). To address this challenge, we have carefully elaborated the metrics (for details and limits, see Zafra-Calvo et al 2017 ) to focus on contribution of social equity criteria toward equitably managed PAs rather than establishing a normative state of social equity in PAs.…”

Tata Kelola Sampah Rumah Tangga melalui Pemberdayaan Masyarakat dan Desa di Indonesia

“…Publikasi global environmental change, yang memiliki irisan relevan dengan riset ini, menyatakan bahwa "… relationship between environmental management, ecosystem goods and services, human well being, and their relationship to environmental governance, which uncovers the mechanics of how valuation can inform decision-making via different institutional arrangements" (Phelps, Dermawan & Garmendia, 2017). Kebijakan yang dibutuhkan harus dari institusi yang berbeda tetapi dengan tujuan sama, yaitu untuk mengendalikan lingkungan.…”

Four propositions about how valuation intervenes in local environmental politics

“…templates that values-holders do not want and that local decision- While previous scholarship has helpfully identified a panoply of legal and institutional norms that affect the utilisation of valuation knowledge (Barton et al, 2018;Cowell & Lennon, 2014;Phelps et al, 2017;Saarikoski et al, 2018;Waylen & Young, 2014), we need to understand valuation's consequences for social and ecological objectives. At one extreme, practitioners might fully accept prevailing legal categories and utilise valuation tools to seek better outcomes for named allies and objectives.…”

“…In the last decade, an emerging ‘knowledge utilisation’ literature has examined precisely these processes of selective and constrained use of knowledge within power‐laden decision‐making settings and path‐dependent institutional practices (e.g. Barton et al., 2018; Jax et al., 2018; McKenzie et al., 2014; Pérez‐Soba et al., 2018; Phelps et al., 2017; Posner et al., 2016; Primmer et al., 2018; Ruckelshaus et al., 2015; Russel et al., 2016; Saarikoski et al., 2018; Scarlett & Boyd, 2015; Turnpenny et al., 2014; Waylen & Young, 2014). This research paints a nuanced picture of when, where and how valuation knowledge has been — or might be—effective in influencing decisions.…”

“…valuation by academic researchers) is rarely utilised in instrumental ways (Barton et al., 2018; Cowell & Lennon, 2014; McKenzie et al., 2014). Local decision‐making structures are often tightly governed by existing norms of evidence‐creation and adjudication, meaning that external values information is neither recognised nor utilised by these structures (Barton et al., 2018; Phelps et al., 2017; Primmer & Furman, 2012; Saarikoski et al., 2018; Scarlett & Boyd, 2015). For decision‐makers who want evidence aligned with their existing concepts of accuracy and reliability, sophisticated or novel valuation methods present a venture into the unknown, constituting a risk to the decision‐making enterprise (Barton et al., 2018; Cowell & Lennon, 2014).…”