If we cannot define and quantify Ecosystem Services consistently and systematically – we might be lost!
Imagine that every industrial sector, firm, municipality and state reported and classified their production using different definitions and units - Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would be impossible to calculate! This is precisely the difficult situation in which we find ourselves as we try to construct a “green” GDP that accounts for ecosystem services. Organizations such as the World Bank, the United Nations, the EU and others are working to quantify and classify ecosystem services but without common definitions, solid conceptual foundations or broad acceptance. Progress is difficult to observe.
We can all agree it’s time to take full account of ecosystem services in the multitude of daily decisions society makes. To do so we need to address both the supply (biophysical) and demand (human well-being) side of the issue. Final Ecosystem Goods and Services (FEGS) is a concept that appears to negotiate many of the sticky issues that have stifled progress to date. FEGS connects ecological goods and services to human well-being and focuses on what beneficiaries directly use, consume or appreciate from nature (biophysical features, quantities and qualities with clear relevance to human well-being). Moreover, by working from the beneficiary perspective toward the FEGS, attributes can be identified, metrics and indicators of nature that relate to these goods and services can be measured consistently by ecologists, related to human well-being by social scientists, and valued by economists.
This is an unprecedented, trans-disciplinary approach – just as developing a green GDP is an unprecedented challenge. We need a system to quantify ecosystem services that is definitive, nearly complete and non-duplicative. What is the most appropriate approach to take?
Comments
I choose to focus on "might"
I choose to focus on "might" as the operative word in the title of Dixon's stimulating argument. Though the points made are well-reasoned, there is a danger in the assumption that quantified characterizations are inherently more important, more useful than some other constructs. All too often, in my view, we become seduced by numerical information at the expense of what in many situations may be more informative qualitative appraisals. We should be cautious in this effort to make sure we are not eliminating otherwise useful perspectives. For example, in a recent document prepared by the Treaty 8 First Nations of what is today northern Alberta, speaking about landuse planning activities they argue:
We should quantify those aspects of the ecological-socio-economic landscape that is amenable to precise measurement, but we ought not do so at the risk of marginalizing other legitimate ways of knowing.
Larry makes a very good
Larry makes a very good point. I would like to point out that FEGS, by definition, focus on the beneficiaries of final ecosystem goods and services. Beneficiaries could and should well include First Nation people whom may benefit from non-consumptive as well as consumptive uses of ecosystems. This linkage to the well-being of specific beneficiaries, which should include First Nations people, would actually give them an explicit voice in decision making. While this science based approach would provide the opportunity for this input from First Nation people as well as othes, how the input woud be weighted by decision makers is yet to be determined. Dixon Landers
Here are my thoughts, what if
Here are my thoughts, what if there was a way to minimize the effect globally on the deterioration of the ecosystem without fully compromising the current "services and goods" that science has evolved into humanity. There is a way, and its not reinventing the wheel, but by redirecting the current formulas, multimillion dollar monopolies use as their tool to promote easy accessiblity to a better,simpler way of life.
Now I know I might be confusing you, but just think of the things we are really using that is currently altering the ecosystem in an alarming capacity. Our wild life is being severely crippled by modern science, only we are too conformed with the up and coming that we don't see the benefits we do have right now .
We cannot and should not stop evolving to the new decade of what science could simplify, but we can redirect the way we use the "formula" of science to promote a better eco safe global economy.
If anyone is interested in creating a dialogue with me and really evaluating what I am writiing about please let me know by e-mail. l-castro@live.com
Thanks
Adding an ecological
Adding an ecological dimension to the economy is how I view the emerging green economy. Our economic system is not wrong, nor does it need to be replaced, it is just incomplete to address the full economic needs of the participants. From that perspective we do not need to panic to ensure every ecocommerce effort in the world is aligned, but that these efforts can progress toward recognizing this absent economic dimension. There will be points of contention and moments of exasperation such as turning points similar to beta-VHS, or establishing the QWERTY keyboard - and then things move forward again. As I build my QWERTY keyboard, I am doing so from the common denominator of contempory natural capital wealth; soil. It may fail or it may prevail, but it will also influence. As we venture into ecologizing the economy, we must at least have faith in the ecological model, that billions of traits, decisions and events, conducted in an open ecosystem ultimately results in the best, robust system for the time. And if evolution is still the best model to employ, I will put my money on the discreet efforts that are mobile, innovative, highly reproductive and focus on the fundamentals. While these are not the traits of ruling dinosaurs, they are the traits that take down ruling dinosaurs.
lcasto's comment is a bit
lcasto's comment is a bit tangential to classifying ecosystem services. I do not disagree with what she says, but while we are moving in the direction she suggests, I think developing a robust, systematic ecosystem service classification system will be an important contribution to not only science but for developing and supporting sustainable societies.
Tim Gieseke makes the point that whatever system or systems we develop for classifying and using ecosystem services systematically will evolve. I could not agree more. Whatever classification system we initially begin using at multiple scales will undoubtedly be improved upon as the future unfolds. There certainly will be feedback from policy makers and community users that will refine and improve the approach over time and as technilogical innovations are incorporated. This is what happend to the metrics and approach involved with the first estimates of GDP - which was as basic as counting the train boxcars leaving Chicago for New York!
The problem with classifying
The problem with classifying ecosystem services, particularly final ecosystem services, is that they are a social construct, not an ecological / biophysical process that can be measured through a positivist methodology, because how they are described and defined is imbued with a subjective sense of meaning which will determine in what way and to what degree they are valued. As such, who should classify them is not only an epistemological issue. If we are moving to valuing FEGS by beneficiaries, then the beneficiaries must also be the ones that do the classification. That makes value comparisons between different social-geographical contexts complicated, but then that hooks into questions about the nature of value and values. I think this is what the point about indigenous people might be about. Certainly epistemological assumptions can and are used in unethical ways on a regular basis.
And then aside from this epistemological issue, the idea of a green GDP where ecosystem services are taken into account still has many other obstacles. For example, it only makes sense to value marginal changes of ESG, because valuation of non-marginal changes can takes us beyond uncertain ecological tipping points which impact on ecological production functions in such a way that we can expect very different value outcomes.
Or, we have a high degree of certainty around the value of conventional GDP, but we have a lot of uncertainty about ecological production functions - how do we deal with that?
Because of these many different issues around aggregation, in my view it makes more sense to use ecological indicators on a large scale (what's happening to ecosystem function, and what are the likely impacts on ecosystem service provision), even while economic valuation can be very useful at smaller scales (project appraisal etc.)
I believe Jasper Kenter makes
I believe Jasper Kenter makes an important point. As ecosystem services depend on socially-defined meanings and values (perhaps particularly true for cultural ecosystem services), and hence it cannot be assumed that a measure and value ascribed to an ESS in one place can be reliably generalised to other place/context. In addition to his points, I'd add that it is not even clear whose judgements /values should count when trying to assess services delivered: for example, perhaps a community local to a resource gives low ratings of services X,Y and Z, but visitors but perhaps delivery of X,Y and Z is deemed of global importance and value.
I appreciate the desire for standardisation but I worry that in the drive for standardised methods and generalised maps of services, we will end with some things measured inappropriately, partially, or not at all, perhaps with easy to measure things (e.g. those relating to provisioning) dominating decision-making (as, it could be argued, they do now). This has equity implications.
Could using standardised a 'toolkit' methodologies could go some way to ensure that all types of ESS are always measured and used in decision-making (even if the details of how they are measured and the values ascribed to them will vary according to context)? If comparability is desired, could such an approach be sufficient? This perhaps could give qualitative comparability though not quantitative comparaibility.