The deep-sea includes over 90% of the world's oceans and is thought to be one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world. It supplies society with valuable ecosystem services, including the ...provision of food, the regeneration of nutrients and the sequestration of carbon. Technological advancements in the second half of the 20th century made large-scale exploitation of mineral, hydrocarbon and fish resources possible. These economic activities, combined with climate change impacts, constitute a considerable threat to deep-sea biodiversity. Many governments, including that of the UK, have therefore decided to implement additional protected areas in their waters of national jurisdiction. To support the decision process and to improve our understanding for the acceptance of marine conservation plans across the general public, a choice experiment survey asked Scottish households for their willingness-to-pay for additional marine protected areas in the Scottish deep-sea. This study is one of the first to use valuation methodologies to investigate public preferences for the protection of deep-sea ecosystems. The experiment focused on the elicitation of economic values for two aspects of marine biodiversity: (i) the existence value for deep-sea species and (ii) the option value of deep-sea organisms as a source for future medicinal products.
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
Submarine canyons are considered biodiversity hotspots which have been identified for their important roles in connecting the deep sea with shallower waters. To date, a huge gap exists between the ...high importance that scientists associate with deep-sea ecosystem services and the communication of this knowledge to decision makers and to the wider public, who remain largely ignorant of the importance of these services. The connectivity and complexity of marine ecosystems makes knowledge transfer very challenging, and new communication tools are necessary to increase understanding of ecological values beyond the science community. We show how the Ecosystem Principles Approach, a method that explains the importance of ocean processes via easily understandable ecological principles, might overcome this challenge for deep-sea ecosystem services. Scientists were asked to help develop a list of clear and concise ecosystem principles for the functioning of submarine canyons through a Delphi process to facilitate future transfers of ecological knowledge. These ecosystem principles describe ecosystem processes, link such processes to ecosystem services, and provide spatial and temporal information on the connectivity between deep and shallow waters. They also elucidate unique characteristics of submarine canyons. Our Ecosystem Principles Approach was successful in integrating ecological information into the ecosystem services assessment process. It therefore has a high potential to be the next step towards a wider implementation of ecological values in marine planning. We believe that successful communication of ecological knowledge is the key to a wider public support for ocean conservation, and that this endeavour has to be driven by scientists in their own interest as major deep-sea stakeholders.
Recreational users appreciate the UK marine environment for its cultural ecosystem services (CES) and their use and non-use values. UK Governments are currently establishing a network of marine ...protected areas (MPAs) informed by ecological data and socio-economic evidence. Evidence on CES values is needed, but only limited data have been available. We present a case study from the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA) follow-on phase that elicited divers’ and anglers’ willingness to pay (WTP) for potential MPAs. The case study is an innovative combination of a travel-cost based choice experiment and an attribute-based contingent valuation method. Our study design allowed us to understand the marine users’ preferences from both a user and a stewardship perspective. Following the UK NEA’s place-based CES framework, we characterised marine CES as environmental spaces that might be protected, with features including the underwater seascape, and iconic and non-iconic species. Our survey highlighted the importance of CES to divers and anglers. A wide variety of marine spaces influenced user-WTP, while stewardship-WTP was most influenced by management restrictions, species protection, and attitudes towards marine conservation. An understanding of key stakeholders’ CES values can inform a more holistic and sustainable approach to marine management, especially for decisions involving trade-offs between marine protection and opportunity costs of the blue economy.
•Assessment of cultural ecosystem service use and non-use values of the UK marine sites.•Novel combination of choice experiment and attribute-based contingent valuation method.•High average willingness-to-pay to protect marine sites against future harm.•Access restrictions for MPAs would reduce divers’ and anglers’ values significantly.•Shared perception that fisheries exclusion is necessary for successful protection.
Monetary valuation quantifies exchange values, but broader approaches are needed to understand the meaning of those monetary values and the shared, plural and cultural values that underpin them. In ...this study, we integrated deliberative monetary valuation, storytelling, subjective well-being and psychometric approaches to comprehensively elicit cultural ecosystem service values for proposed UK marine protected areas. We elicit and compare five valuation stages: individual values from an online survey; individual and group values following deliberation on information in workshops; and individual and group values following storytelling and a ‘transcendental values compass’ deliberation. Deliberated group values significantly differed from non-deliberated individual values, with reduced willingness to pay and increased convergence with subjective wellbeing; deliberated individual values fell between the two. Storytelling played an important role in revealing values that were previously implicit. Participants were more confident about values elicited in the workshops than the online survey and felt that deliberated values should be used in decision-making. The results of this study (albeit with a limited sample size) suggest that shared values may be a better reflection of welfare implications than non-deliberated individual values, while at the same time more reflective of participants' transcendental values: their broader life goals and principles.
•We integrate deliberative monetary valuation, storytelling and other methods to consider the value of cultural services of UK marine protected areas.•We compare individual and group values and effects of an information-based and transcendental values focused deliberative intervention.•Group-deliberated values may be a better reflection of welfare implications than non-deliberated individual values.•Storytelling played an important role in revealing values that were previously implicit.
Marine ecosystems and the ecosystem services they provide have declined dramatically over the last century. In principle, assessing ecosystem services and highlighting their value can help balancing ...marine conservation and socio-economic goals in environmental decision making. However, in particular for deep-sea ecosystem services many research gaps remain due to methodological challenges involved in their assessment. This thesis advances the research field by assessing economic non-market and non-use values of coastal and deep-sea biodiversity. Stated preference methods were applied along with a Delphi-based expert assessment. In the first choice experiment, participants were willing to pay between £70 and £77 annually for scenarios protecting deep-sea organisms and for medicinal products from deep-sea areas, an environment that participants were mostly unfamiliar with. The second stated preference survey with experienced marine users estimated a stewardship willingness to pay between £8.83 and £8.29 as one-off payments to protect marine sites from degradation. User-preferences were influenced by a broad range of marine habitats, accessibility and the presence of iconic species. The economic value of protected sites decreased when recreational users were excluded. In the third case study, an ecological method − the Ecosystem Principles Approach − was able to alleviate some uncertainties in submarine canyon ecosystem functioning. Ecosystem principles were developed that described spatial, temporal and causal links between processes, such as transportation processes, and important ecosystem services in submarine canyons. The stated preference case studies provide evidence for the less tangible economic trade-offs in protecting marine areas and partly answer the question of how ecosystem services can be assessed using economic tools to inform marine management priorities. The Ecosystem Principles Approach can help us to understand better how to move towards such management priorities.
Marine ecosystems and the ecosystem services they provide have declined dramatically over the last century. In principle, assessing ecosystem services and highlighting their value can help balancing ...marine conservation and socio-economic goals in environmental decision making. However, in particular for deep-sea ecosystem services many research gaps remain due to methodological challenges involved in their assessment. This thesis advances the research field by assessing economic non-market and non-use values of coastal and deep-sea biodiversity. Stated preference methods were applied along with a Delphi-based expert assessment. In the first choice experiment, participants were willing to pay between £70 and £77 annually for scenarios protecting deep-sea organisms and for medicinal products from deep-sea areas, an environment that participants were mostly unfamiliar with. The second stated preference survey with experienced marine users estimated a stewardship willingness to pay between £8.83 and £8.29 as one-off payments to protect marine sites from degradation. User-preferences were influenced by a broad range of marine habitats, accessibility and the presence of iconic species. The economic value of protected sites decreased when recreational users were excluded. In the third case study, an ecological method − the Ecosystem Principles Approach − was able to alleviate some uncertainties in submarine canyon ecosystem functioning. Ecosystem principles were developed that described spatial, temporal and causal links between processes, such as transportation processes, and important ecosystem services in submarine canyons. The stated preference case studies provide evidence for the less tangible economic trade-offs in protecting marine areas and partly answer the question of how ecosystem services can be assessed using economic tools to inform marine management priorities. The Ecosystem Principles Approach can help us to understand better how to move towards such management priorities.
•Active network for early-stage ecosystem service scientists and practitioners.•Opportunity to join on-going activities.•Find fellows and develop ideas for new activities and projects.
The deep-sea includes over 90% of the world oceans and is thought to be one of the most diverse ecosystems in the World. It supplies society with valuable ecosystem services, including the provision ...of food, the regeneration of nutrients and the sequestration of carbon. Technological advancements in the second half of the 20th century made large-scale exploitation of mineral-, hydrocarbon- and fish resources possible. These economic activities, combined with climate change impacts, constitute a considerable threat to deep-sea biodiversity. Many governments, including that of the UK, have therefore decided to implement additional protected areas in their waters of national jurisdiction. To support the decision process and to improve our understanding for the acceptance of marine conservation plans across the general public, a choice experiment survey asked Scottish households for their willingness-to-pay for additional marine protected areas in the Scottish deep-sea. This study is one of the first to use valuation methodologies to investigate public preferences for the protection of deep-sea ecosystems. The experiment focused on the elicitation of economic values for two aspects of marine biodiversity: (i) the existence value for deep-sea species and (ii) the option-use value of deep-sea organisms as a source for future medicinal products.
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