The substantial importance of cultural benefits as a source of human well-being is increasingly recognised in society-environment interactions. The integration of cultural ecosystem services (CES) ...into the ecosystem services framework remains a challenge due to the difficulties associated with defining, articulating and measuring CES. We operationalise a novel framework developed by the UK National Ecosystem Assessment that identifies CES as the interactions between environmental spaces (i.e. physical localities or landscapes), and the activities that occur there. We evaluate the benefits of the CES provided by 151 UK marine sites to recreational sea anglers and divers, using subjective well-being indicators. Factor analysis of an online questionnaire with 1220 participants revealed multiple CES benefits that contribute to human wellbeing e.g. including ‘engagement with nature’, ‘place identity’ and ‘therapeutic value’. In addition to regional differences, we also found that biophysical attributes of sites, such as the presence of charismatic species and species diversity, were positively associated with provision of CES benefits. The study provides evidence that could be used to inform designation of protected areas. The indicators used in the study may also be adapted for use across a range of marine and terrestrial spaces for improved integration of CES in environmental decision-making.
•CES are under-represented in environmental management decisions.•We developed indicators to assess cultural benefits across 151 marine areas.•We found regional trends in types of subjective cultural wellbeing.•Biophysical characteristics such as biodiversity influence cultural wellbeing.•Wider application of approach may better integrate cultural values in decisions.
Social valuation of ecosystem services and public policy alternatives is one of the greatest challenges facing ecological economists today. Frameworks for valuing nature increasingly include ...shared/social values as a distinct category of values. However, the nature of shared/social values, as well as their relationship to other values, has not yet been clearly established and empirical evidence about the importance of shared/social values for valuation of ecosystem services is lacking. To help address these theoretical and empirical limitations, this paper outlines a framework of shared/social values across five dimensions: value concept, provider, intention, scale, and elicitation process. Along these dimensions we identify seven main, non-mutually exclusive types of shared values: transcendental, cultural/societal, communal, group, deliberated and other-regarding values, and value to society. Using a case study of a recent controversial policy on forest ownership in England, we conceptualise the dynamic interplay between shared/social and individual values. The way in which social value is assessed in neoclassical economics is discussed and critiqued, followed by consideration of the relation between shared/social values and Total Economic Value, and a review of deliberative and non-monetary methods for assessing shared/social values. We conclude with a discussion of the importance of shared/social values for decision-making.
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•Individualist valuation approaches obscure and underplay collective meanings and significance ascribed to natural environments•There is a lack of theoretical and empirical clarity on what constitutes shared and social values and how they can be assessed•We provide a theoretical framework to discriminate dimensions of shared/social values and an overview of valuation methods•A shared values approach to valuation can enhance legitimacy, effectiveness and transparency of evidence and help manage risks
Since 2004, the University of the Highlands and Islands, in Scotland, has delivered an online MSc in sustainable mountain development (SMD). Students have the choice of exiting from the course with ...an MSc, a postgraduate diploma, or a postgraduate certificate. This paper first describes the history and delivery of the course, complemented with statistics on past and current students. This is followed by a presentation, analysis, and discussion of the results of an email survey of the 62 people who have gained a qualification from the course and could be contacted, achieving a response rate of 81%. The survey gathered information about each individual's motivations for taking the degree; benefits perceived with regard to its online nature; subsequent education; current location and employment; and ways in which the course had enabled them to contribute to SMD. Many quotations from graduates are presented, in response to previous findings that it has been difficult to evaluate long-term impacts of education for sustainable development. The paper concludes with some lessons learned from 15 years of experience.
Successful eradications of harmful invasive species have been mostly confined to islands while control programs in mainland areas remain small, uncoordinated and vulnerable to recolonisation. To ...allow the recovery of threatened native species, innovative management strategies are required to remove invasives from large areas. We took an adaptive approach to achieve large scale eradication of invasive American mink in North East Scotland. The project was centred on the Cairngorms National Park (Scotland), with the primary aim of protecting endangered water vole populations. The project was initiated by scientists and supported and implemented through a partnership comprising a government agency, national park authority and local fisheries boards. Capitalising on the convergent interests of a diverse range of local stakeholders, we created a coordinated coalition of trained volunteers to detect and trap mink. Starting in montane headwaters, we systematically moved down river catchments, deploying mink rafts, an effective detection and trapping platform. Volunteers took increasing responsibility for raft monitoring and mink trapping as the project progressed. Within 3
years, the project removed 376 mink from 10570
km
2 with the involvement of 186 volunteers. Capture rate within sub-catchments increased with greater connectivity to mink in other sub-catchments and with proximity to the coast where there is more productive habitat. The main factor underpinning the success of this project was functional volunteer participation. The project is a reason for optimism that the tide of invasion can be rolled back on a large scale where the convergent interest of local communities can be harnessed.
The protection of biodiversity is a key national and international policy objective. While protected areas provide one approach, a major challenge lies in understanding how the conservation of ...biodiversity can be achieved in the context of multiple land management objectives in the wider countryside. Here we analyse metrics of bird diversity in the Scottish uplands in relation to land management types and explore how bird species composition varies in relation to land managed for grazing, hunting and conservation. Birds were surveyed on the heather moorland areas of 26 different landholdings in Scotland. The results indicate that, in relation to dominant management type, the composition of bird species varies but measures of diversity and species richness do not. Intensive management for grouse shooting affects the occurrence, absolute and relative abundance of bird species. While less intensive forms of land management appear to only affect the relative abundance of species, though extensive sheep grazing appears to have little effect on avian community composition. Therefore enhanced biodiversity at the landscape level is likely to be achieved by maintaining heterogeneity in land management among land management units. This result should be taken into account when developing policies that consider how to achieve enhanced biodiversity outside protected areas, in the context of other legitimate land-uses.
The Centre for Mountain Studies (CMS), located at Perth College, University of the Highlands and Islands, Scotland, hosts the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Chair in ...Sustainable Mountain Development. Since 2000, CMS staff and students have been active in research and knowledge exchange activities at scales from the local—in Scotland—to the global (Price 2011; Glass et al 2013). In addition to hosting the Mountains of our Future Earth conference (Perth III), recent international activities have focused on climate change, biosphere reserves, social innovation, and stakeholder engagement in biodiversity research. Projects in Scotland have mainly addressed land management and local communities. The CMS also runs a part-time online MSc program in Sustainable Mountain Development.
This paper explores spiritual and aesthetic cultural values associated with ecosystems. We argue that these values are not best captured by instrumental or consequentialist thinking, and they are ...grounded in conceptions of nature that differ from the ecosystem services conceptual framework. To support our case, we engage with theories of the aesthetic and the spiritual, sample the discourse of ‘wilderness’, and provide empirical evidence from the recent UK National Ecosystem Assessment Follow-on Phase. We observe that accounts of spiritual and aesthetic value in Western culture are diverse and expressed through different media. We recognise that humans do benefit from their aesthetic and spiritual experiences of nature. However, aesthetic and spiritual understandings of the value of nature lead people to develop moral responsibilities towards nature and these are more significant than aesthetic and spiritual benefits from nature. We conclude that aesthetic and spiritual values challenge economic conceptions of ecosystems and of value (including existence value), and that an analysis of cultural productions and a plural-values approach are needed to evidence them appropriately for decision-making.
•Aesthetic and spiritual concepts of nature are unlike the ecosystem services metaphor.•Value in aesthetics and spirituality is not solely consequentialist but includes duties.•Aesthetic and spiritual values of nature are expressed in diverse discourses.•The idea of wilderness illustrates this diversity of conception and value.•Interpretation of cultural evidence reveals these shared values.
People who have a stake in their environment are more likely to volunteer to assist conservation but they must be empowered to do so. This study explored the possibility of harnessing volunteers in ...the control of an invasive predator, the American mink Neovison vison, which decimates seabird colonies in coastal west Scotland. A questionnaire was sent to ecotourism boat operators, a group assumed to have an economic interest in wildlife biodiversity and a stake in their environment, to gauge their opinion on lethal control of American mink. The majority (64%) of respondents were concerned about the presence of mink in their area, agreed with control in principle and were willing to become involved in a volunteer capacity. Respondents who would not volunteer but agreed with control (21%) might reconsider if mink had a visible impact on their local wildlife. The minimum level of support people expected was information on where to get, and how to deploy, monitoring and trapping equipment. This study confirms that people with an intrinsic interest in wildlife consider themselves willing to protect their local biodiversity, with only limited resource input, such as an information pack, from external sources.
Background: The use of research in policy settings is complex, unpredictable and influenced by a range of poorly understood social factors. This makes it difficult to plan for, facilitate and ...evaluate policy impacts arising from research. Aims and Objectives: 1. Propose and test tools for planning for and facilitating research impact, based on a new logic model combined with a novel approach to public/stakeholder analysis. 2. Propose and test methods for establishing causal links between research and policy impacts. 3. Use case study findings to provide new empirical insights into the social processes that mediate the generation of impact from research. Methods: Social Network Analysis, qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews, and analysis of secondary data were used in a case study of peatland climate change research in Scottish Government policy. Findings: Boundary organisations and centrally-positioned, well-trusted individuals, were crucial to the development of a trusted body of research in which policymakers were sufficiently confident as the basis for policy. Discussion and conclusions: The non-linear social dynamics that characterise science-policy networks can be understood and evaluated. By using the tools described in this paper, researchers and other stakeholders can better plan, facilitate and evaluate research impact.
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