Behavioural underpinnings of response policies for ecosystem management

Behavioural underpinnings of response policies for ecosystem management

Ecosystem Services 10 (2014) 125–127 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Ecosystem Services journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecoser ...

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Ecosystem Services 10 (2014) 125–127

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Ecosystem Services journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecoser

Editorial

Behavioural underpinnings of response policies for ecosystem management

Introduction Cultural fulfillment, combined with social and psychological realization of humans constitutes an important part of human well being. Besides material and physical elements, cultural and psychological identification largely emanate from ecosystems and nature. There exists a significant amount of research on the material connections and channels that exist between human-beings and their ecosystems. The provisioning ecosystem services allow access to necessary resources such as food, water, shelter and energy. However, there exists very little research and analysis on the interplay between social and cultural aspects of human well-being and ecosystems. There are a number of challenges in conducting such an analysis where concepts such as ‘nature’, ‘ecosystems’, and ‘human well-being’ are in themselves complex and diverse. Furthermore, challenges remain in assessing the impact of constituents such as spirituality, mental well-being, and identity in the context of humans and nature. Perhaps this is why there exists insufficient in-depth literature on these linkages. Empirical analyses on the impact of natural recreation activities, scenic beauty, and other such aspects of nature on physiological and mental health indicate a positive relationship. For example, methods of nature-based therapy such as wilderness, horticultural and animalassisted therapy have demonstrated success in healing patients who previously had responded poorly to other treatment. Alternatively, urban dwellers have shown to exhibit better concentration, focus, and reduced fatigue and irritability upon spending time in a natural environment.1 This positive effect is crucial in understanding the importance of nature in our everyday lives and nurturing it. In contrast, ecosystems can also play a negative role in human wellbeing in the context of nature's fury. Examples highlighted by Russell et al. (2013) indicate how instances of natural disasters and ‘uncontrollable’ nature have elicited psychological trauma and post-traumatic stress as a symptom of loss of security and control in an individual's life.2 This is rightly so considering natural disasters have created some of the ‘most dramatic instances of resource loss.’3

Cultural well-being and ecosystems Cultural ecology, political ecology, and cultural anthropology have been key areas of knowledge which have studied the 1 2 3

Russell et al., 481. Ibid, 484. Ibid, 484.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2014.11.001 2212-0416/& 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

interface of culture and environmental conditions. However, Russell et al. (2013) make the case that despite such studies being conducted in these fields, most of the research remains independent of one another and devoid of a comprehensive framework of understanding. Anthropologists have especially studied how nature is considered sacred, most predominantly among indigenous cultures, and how that impacts human interaction with it. A notable example of this is how during the colonial period in India, the British had to incorporate the concept of sacred groves and not impose over land that the local population had set aside for ancestral ghosts.4 Invoking such meaning in nature has even been incorporated into laws such as the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act, which recognize and protect ownership of tribal land in India. Such a strong association between culture and nature is critical in identity-building as well. An example of this is the Gimi people of Papa New Guinea who consider forests to be the manifestations of their ancestors, and thus inextricably linked to their personal history, lineage and identity. Sacred sites found in nature have been found to be significant in various religions, indicating that ‘the continued existence and preservation of personally and culturally relevant sacred natural sites can, in many cases, be linked directly to that individual's sense of spiritual well-being’. In that sense, ecological degradation or tarnishing of a certain natural sacred site manifests itself as a cultural or spiritual loss and can alter or even impoverish certain cultures and individual or communal spiritual well-being. Given the diverse categories and interactions that take place between nature and humans, anthropological, ethnographic, historic and other such disciplines pose the challenge of incommensurability in understanding the nature–human dynamic. Nonetheless, the challenge also poses itself as a ripe opportunity to engage in understanding the complexity of the intangible connections between humans and their ecosystems through a larger framework. There exists significant evidence linking and indicating the positive impact that nature can have on physical and mental health. Conversely, virtually no empirical research exists on the spiritual impact of nature on individuals, perhaps due to difficulty in measuring such a constituent. How individuals and communities seek nature as a means to spiritual well-being or how nature has an impact in identity creation, are elements which have not been documented or properly researched. Thus, due to the uneven characteristic of the landscape of research, it becomes

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Bhattacharya et al., 409.

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difficult to have a holistic and in-depth assessment. This in turn disables us from fully understanding the extent of ‘services’ ecosystems provide us with and integrating that into the larger decision-making processes. By recognizing the importance of such linkages and fostering them, greater value can be injected into ecosystems and in turn, a greater desire to protect and conserve them. The Millennium Ecosystems Assessment (MA) suggests that we have lost more than 40 percent of the ecosystem services in the last 50 years or so on which the societal well-being critically depends (Bhattacharya et al., 1995). The state of the ecosystems ultimately depends upon our ability to maneuver potent drivers of change like climate change and demographic dynamics, as well as an effective response policy to manage changes in ecosystems and in the flow of services. Understanding various response policies like technological, economic, social and behavioral is key to the development and implementation of an efficient management strategy for the ecosystems. Social and behavioral foundations of response policies somehow have not attained the kind of discourse it deserves partly due to its trans-disciplinary nature and partly on account of the fact that specialists who work on social and behavioral dimensions have been unable to engage with the natural scientists working in the areas of ecosystem services. The problems of deteriorating ecosystems and biodiversity loss primarily caused by human interventions can effectively be addressed by analyzing and understanding human behaviour at both individual and collective levels. Addressing large-scale environmental issues and finding ways to foster sustainable development will require a concerted effort on the part of natural and social science researchers but particularly those who focus exclusively on studying human behavior. At the same time, it is observed that there is a big communication gap as well as ‘narcissism of small differences’ that needs to be de-coded. This Special Section in Volume 10 of Ecosystem Services attempts to highlight the latest thinking and next steps in this direction. Issues underlying several well-subscribed responses like economic valuation of ES, multi-criteria analysis, deliberative consensus have become quite popular. These have been studied through more socio-cultural and psychological lenses propagating ideas such as the importance of ecological identity, dynamic learning about nature and ecosystems, social identity and community response to valuation of ecosystem services as ways of thinking about response policies. The papers have been divided into three sections. The first section which has three papers highlights the institutional and socio behavioural elements of PES. In this section the paper – Value, Institutional complementarity and variety in coupled socio-ecological systems by Franz Gatzweiler (2014) looks at incorporation of multiplicity of values as a way of understanding coupled socio-ecological systems so that when we are looking at complex values and social systems, goods are not partitioned and exchanged on markets in a simplistic or unreliable manner. The author argues that taking different value dimensions into account is a ‘costly’ social process and though it can begin with economic valuation for a lasting behavioural or social change model this should further feed into a deliberative process. The paper further highlights various interaction domains by extending the concept of institutional complementarities. Importance of concepts such as mutual reinforcement of institutions and compensation are underscored. The paper – Behavioural Foundations of Response Policies for Ecosystem Management: what can we learn from Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) by Kumar et al. (2014) and Kumar and Kumar (2014) evaluates the response policies for management of ecosystems and by first focussing on economic response policies; they then discuss the growing popularity of payment for ecosystem services (PES) as an instrument. Critical aspects of PES –

namely the measurement of services, sociocultural and behavioural factors such as accountability and trust – are then discussed as areas that need to be thought through. The social and cultural context of transaction of economic valuation. Finally, the paper makes suggestions on how better design and execution can help evolve PES instruments further. The last paper in this section, Recasting payments for ecosystem services in water resource management: a novel approach by Kolinjivadi et al. (2014) suggests that PES can be potentially effective and socially credible if the payment is socially negotiated and nested institutions are recognized while designing and establishing the payment mechanism between providers and beneficiaries of the ecosystem services. Section II: cultural dimensions of payment for ecosystem services have two papers – first on Ecosystem Governance in a highland village in Peru: facing the challenges of globalization and climate change by authors Lennox and Gowdy (2014). The paper highlight the impact of globalization as a driver of change for the farmers in Peru where the traditional institutions are getting weak which otherwise has proved effective in management of ecosystem services. The second paper Cultural ecosystems and economic development: world heritage and early efforts at tourism in Albania by Andrew Siedl (2014) illustrates the cultural dimension of Mother Teresa International Airport in Albania and suggests that the tourism benefits would critically depend on the industry's perceived strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, constraints and priorities for investment or change in order to build a healthy tourism sector for Albania. Finally, Section III application of innovative approaches has four interesting papers suggestion how new approaches can be applied to understand social-psychological aspects of PES. Under this section, the first paper – psychological dimensions of choice and public policy design written by Onofri and Nunes (2014) builds on the ‘warm glow’ effect emanating from private provisioning of public goods by consumers in the setting of Portugal. The paper explains that there could be several reasons why people behave in altruistic ways – wanting to avoid the scorn of others seen as being charitable, etc. they find that the warm glow has two associated elements, namely, an ego-moral satisfaction obtained due to a direct personal advantage or from a direct personal sense of pride from their contribution and a socially driven sense of moral satisfaction obtained due to a direct personal sense of pride having made a contribution to social cohesion or betterment. The second paper – perception, acquisition and use of ecosystem services: human behaviour, ecosystem management and policy implications by Asah et al. (2014) is a qualitative study into the socio-ecological experiences of people belonging to the Warm springs confederated tribes of Oregan state. The interviews focus on the perceived benefits of and mechanisms of acquisition and use for behavioural compliance with ecosystem management and policy. The authors demonstrate through interviews with Native American participants that ecosystem services are motivators of human behaviors and that indirect benefits of ecosystem are motivationally functional or useful. The paper – network governance and the management of ecosystem services: the case of urban environmental stewardship in New York city, James Conolly et al., (2014) discusses the implications of hybrid network governance structure in the city and what it means for cross-disciplinary environmental studies. Using a mixed methods approach, the author argues that the network is organized according to ecological functioning and geography. While tracing the socio-political historical development of ecosystem governance network he finds that these networks developed over three distinctive periods each one complementing the other. The paper by Costanza et al. (2014) on simulation games that integrate research, learning and entertainment around ecosystem

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services, that shows that with the existing capability to link relatively sophisticated computer simulations to engaging game interfaces over the internet, we are able to observe and record player behavior. The authors discuss the use of games in research, education, and entertainment and develop ideas for integrating these three functions around the idea of ecosystem services valuation. The paper further explores the relationship between the attributes or our hypothetical integrated game and existing games, and the functional attributes that would be needed in games aimed at valuing ecosystem services. These papers cover a wide range of issues falling in the domain of cultural and behavioural dimension, usually not clearly focused in the discourse on ecosystem management. Selected papers neither claim to provide a solitary solution to the problem nor it can boast of offering step wise operational pathways for future action. The collection of papers however seems to succeed in bringing new insights, deconstructs the simplistic solution, and recognizes the complexities and attempts to organize them for socially credible response policies for ecosystem management.

References Asah, S.T., Guerry, A.D., Blahna, D.J., Lawler, J.J., 2014. Perception, acquisition and use of ecosystem services: Human behavior, and ecosystem management and policy implications. Ecosyst. Serv. 10, 180–186. Bhattacharya, D.K., Brondizio, Eduardo, Spierenburg, Marja, 1995. Cultural services, Cultural Services: A Community of Interests. COSLA, Edinburgh (N. pag. Print).

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Conolly, J.J.T., Svendsen, E.S., Fisher, D.R., Campbell, L.K., 2014. Networked governance and the management of ecosystem services:The case of urban environmental steward-ship in NewYork City. Ecosyst. Serv. 10, 187–194. Costanza, R., Chichakly, K., Dale, V., Farber, S., Finnigan, D., Grigg, K., Heckbert, S., Kubiszewski, I., Lee, H., Liu, S., Magnuszewski, P., Maynard, S., McDonald, N., Mills, R., Ogilvy, S., Pert, P.L., Renz, J., Wainger, L., Young, M., Richard Ziegler, C., 2014. Simulation games that integrate research, entertainment, and learning around ecosystem services. Ecosyst. Serv. 10, 195–201. Gatzweiler, F.W., 2014. Value, institutional complementarity and variety in coupled socio-ecological systems. Ecosyst. Serv. 10, 137–143. Kolinjivadi, V., Adamowski, J., Kosoy, N., 2014. Recasting payments for ecosystem services (PES) in water resource management: A novel institutional approach. Ecosyst. Serv. 10, 144–154. Kumar, P., Kumar, M., 2014. Behavioural underpinnings of response policies for ecosystem management. Ecosyst. Serv. 10, 125–127. Kumar, P., Kumar, M., Garrett, L., 2014. Institutional and socio-behavioral considerations in payment for ecosystem services. Behavioural foundation of response policies for ecosystem management: What can we learn from Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES). Ecosyst. Serv. 10, 128–136. Lennox, E., Gowdy, J., 2014. Cultural dimensions of payment for ecosystem services. Ecosystem governance in a highland village in Peru: Facing the challenges of globalization and climate change. Ecosyst. Serv. 10, 155–163. Onofri, L., Nunes, P.A.L.D., 2014. Application of innovative approaches. De rationibus est disputandum: Psychological dimensions of choice and public policy design. Ecosyst. Serv. 10, 172–179. Russell, Roly, Guerry, Anne D., Balvanera, Patricia, Gould, Rachelle K., Basurto, Xavier, Chan, Kai M.a., Klain, Sarah, Levine, Jordan, Tam, Jordan, 2013. Humans and nature: how knowing and experiencing nature affect well-being. Annu. Rev. Environ. Resourc. 38 (1), 473–502. Siedl, A., 2014. Cultural ecosystem services and economic development: World Heritage and early efforts at tourism in Albania. Ecosyst. Serv. 10, 164–171.

Pushpam Kumar n, Manasi Kumar n

n

Corresponding authors.