Integrating plural values in ecosystem services valuation: an ecological economics approach

Abstract

To promote ecosystems conservation, ecosystem services (ES) scholars have encouraged the recognition of importance of ES through their valuation. Although the call of integrating plural values has been a mainstay in much of the ES conceptual literature, in practice monetary valuations have remained the dominant valuation tool. Monetary valuations have been criticized because they may obscure the values people attribute to ES and nature on the basis of ethical, emotional, cultural or social concerns. The main goal of this PhD dissertation is to contribute to the ES valuation practice by assessing how plural values can be recognized and integrated in valuations. By addressing the main goal, this dissertation aims to answer three research questions: How ES valuations can recognize and incorporate multiple human-nature relationships, value notions, and valuation methods? How the socio-cultural context influences the attribution of plural values to ES and nature? How do different valuation methods frame valuation outcomes? I answer these questions under the lens of three pillars of Ecological Economics: value pluralism, value incommensurability and value articulating institutions. First, I define a taxonomy of values and valuation methods that can be integrated in ES valuations. I argue that this taxonomy can help researches to representing people’s multiple and context specific ways of valuing nature. Following this analytical perspective, I then empirically explore the second and third research questions by applying a non-monetary valuation approach based on three methods: i) narratives of the importance of ES and nature, ii) prioritization of environmental motivations and iii) willingness to give up time for ES conservation (WTT). I performed qualitative and quantitative data analyses of 589 questionnaires that were collected in the mid-upper stream of the Otún watershed, Colombian Andes. The empirical research resulted in four main findings. First, respondents attribute multiple values to the ecosystems including intrinsic, instrumental and relational values, supporting the necessity of integrating value pluralism in ES valuations. Second, I found that rural people, compared with urban, prioritized altruistic and biospheric environmental motivations, were more likely to express intrinsic and relational values, and expressed a higher WTT for ES conservation. I argue that the differentiated valuation of nature by rural people emerges from their material dependence on ES and their strong cultural relations with ecosystems. Third, I found that socio-cultural factors (e.g. place of residence, age, education) and environmental motivations underpin the attribution of values by people. This finding supports the perspective that values are place-based and context specific. Fourth, I found that the different valuation methods frame valuation outcomes in different ways. I claim that non-monetary valuation approaches are suitable to capture the values of rural and indigenous people, usually excluded in monetary valuations, because are not inherent related to income distribution. However, I found that WTT can also restrict other social groups of expressing values such as women, elderly and people with high time restrictions. In sum, this dissertation contributes to current gaps of ES science-policy interface by i) integrating value pluralism and incommensurability in ES valuation practice, ii) understanding the multiple values people place on ES and nature and iii) further development of non-monetary valuation methods. Through the discussion of the ontological, epistemological and ethical assumptions, ES valuations cannot be further framed as technical tools but as political projects on sustainability. I argue that framing ES and nature valuations from Ecological Economics c

Date of Award	12 Sept 2017
Original language	Spanish
Supervisor	Berta Martín López (Director), Erik Gomez-Baggethun (Director) & Esteve Corbera Elizalde (Tutor)