Understanding the diversity of values of “Nature’s contributions to people”: insights from the IPBES Assessment of Europe and Central Asia

Abstract

Assessments of the value of nature (e.g., TEEB. The economics of ecosystems and biodiversity: ecological and economic foundations, London, 2010) have tended to focus on the instrumental values of ecosystem services. However, recent academic and policy debate have highlighted a wider range of values (e.g., relational and intrinsic values), valuation methods (e.g., socio-cultural methods), and worldviews [e.g., indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) systems]. To account for these new perspectives, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has developed the concept of 'Nature's contributions to people' (NCP), which aims to be a more inclusive approach to understanding and accounting for the diversity of values held by different stakeholders. In this paper, we aim to critically appraise the merits of the IPBES conceptual framework by reviewing of the findings the IPBES Europe and Central Asia (ECA) assessment. Our objectives are: (1) To review and assess the instrumental and relational values of NCP in Europe and Central Asia? (2) To consider what additional insights into the value of NCP are gained through the inclusion of socio-cultural valuations and ILK? Our analysis demonstrates that the ECA assessment captures a wide range of instrumental and relational values of NCP; however, we acknowledge variation in the availability of this value evidence. We also highlight new insights that can be uncovered through the adoptions of socio-cultural valuation methods and analysis of ILK knowledge. We conclude that the NCP paradigm, with its focus on instrumental and relational values, treats values more holistically than previous assessments such as TEEB (2010). For example, by giving a 'voice' to ILK holders, we demonstrated new types of NCP such as carrion removal, along with evidence of relational values including sense of place, identity, symbolic values and sacredness. While the ECA assessments may be defined as an example of a 'Multiple evidence base' approach to valuation of ecosystem assessments, the ECA assessment fails to demonstrate how to incorporate this wider range of values in decision-making processes.

Editorial overview: theoretical traditions in social values for sustainability

“…In many papers in this special feature, values from different lenses are narrated as opposed to empirically integrated (Gould et al 2019;Ives and Kidwell 2019;O'Connor and Kenter 2019). Christie et al (2019b) demonstrate how values could be elicited in parallel by drawing on the multiple evidence-based approach adopted by IPBES, without going into the details of value conflicts within and across theoretical traditions, and pointing out that IPBES has thus far lacked sufficient knowledge of processes for reconciling plural values and addressing value conflicts. Integration and aggregation of values is particularly complex when dealing with different theoretical traditions, because not just conflicting values but also potentially incompatible value lenses and meta-lenses need reconciliation, including diverging perspectives around value integration and aggregation itself.…”

“…3g). Large-scale assessments like IPBES and IPCC have been increasingly effective at recognising plurality of knowledge, but have often overlooked contrasting rationalities, ontological claims and knowledge forms and how to manage conceptual or social conflicts among those who have different perspectives (Löfmarck and Lidskog 2017;Ford et al 2016;Christie et al 2019b;Hulme 2011). Power relations can be considered by exploring the power relations which underpin the governance and institutions that determine access to and control over natural resources, assessing labour relations and recognising the historical factors that shape power relations and environmental change (Berbés-Blázquez et al 2016), as well as the power associated with social status and prevailing societal discourses, such as that of perpetual economic growth (Orchard-Webb et al 2016).…”

Monetary Assessment of Restored Habitats as a Support Tool for Sustainable Landscape Management in Lowland Cultural Landscapes

“…Furthermore, the monitoring methods used can have strong impact on the results. Even though the present method is widely accepted, there exist several other techniques which can bring other results, as recent academic and policy debates have highlighted a wider range of values (e.g., relational and intrinsic values), valuation methods (e.g., socio-cultural methods), and worldviews (e.g., indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) systems) [36].…”

Loving the mess: navigating diversity and conflict in social values for sustainability

“…The exploration of tensions between theoretical traditions is an opportunity for personal and collective growth and a means for advancing scholarship, not least because it highlights different understandings of and approaches to social values that may not be self-evident when those from different backgrounds collaborate. Tensions and lenses need to be explicitly and rigorously considered if the goal is to incorporate a diversity of worldviews into environmental decision-making, as proposed by, for example, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) (Pascual et al 2017;Díaz et al 2018;Christie et al 2019b). The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has long been heavily dominated by natural science worldviews, but also here there are demands for a more diverse knowledge base and challenging implicit social value lenses (Hulme 2011;Ford et al 2016).…”

“…Meta-lenses also help us understand how social value lenses are associated with and applied to different purposes, exemplified by the diverse papers in this Special Feature. Some meta-lenses focus on understanding relations between values and behaviour (van Riper et al 2019), others are geared towards value formation and co-construction (Kenter et al 2016c;Calcagni et al 2019); lived values (Brear and Mbonane 2019); values embedded in cultural institutions (Gould et al 2019;Ives and Kidwell 2019;Christie et al 2019b); or value-awareness and activation in relation to wellbeing and sustainability . Other meta-lenses are critical and emancipatory (O'Connor and Kenter 2019; Ravenscroft 2019).…”