A carregar...
Publicação
Puzzling Out Ecosystem Services Values: A Participatory Framework to Support Decision- Making
| Nome: | Descrição: | Tamanho: | Formato: | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14.01 MB | Adobe PDF |
Autores
Orientador(es)
Resumo(s)
Ecosystems are the support of our lives, with their goods and services backing up human wellbeing. The concept of ecosystem services was advanced as a metaphor to demonstrate the importance of nature and its processes to the existence of our societies. Since the early stages of its adoption, this concept has been seen as a promising way to emphasise the importance of nature conservation. This research field is growing fast, with a strong focus on research-society interfaces. However, as much worldwide attention as the ecosystem services concept has recently received, value reductionism and monistic approaches, still surface in many debates.
Looking only into one value dimension brings several associated risks and biases. This calls for adoption of more integrative perspectives where multiple values attached to ecosystem services are considered. Once these multiple values are recognized, the ensuing question is how to promote their articulation in the context of policy and decision-making processes.
Ecosystem services is a value-laden concept that carries in itself potential controversies about the values it translates. On the other hand, it is also seen as a platform to promote participation and to search for new paths of collaborative action. Based on these assumptions this dissertation started from the focal question “how to structure a participatory process for the integration and articulation of multiple values of ecosystem services to inform decisionmaking?”.
A three stage participatory conceptual framework was developed and subsequently tested in the Arrábida Natural Park, a Portuguese coastal and marine protected area. The proposed approach starts with a “set the scene” stage, where a new methodology to implement a collaborative scoping process of ecosystem services was developed. Scoping tasks combine an institutional and stakeholder analysis that allows to identify key stakeholders, their interdependencies and institutional rules governing the study area, with a participatory workshop, where the ecosystem services provided by the area are identified by participants.
Such workshop also provides a platform to scope ecosystem services threats, linkages with wellbeing elements, as well as a preliminary assessment of ecosystem services ecological, economic and social importance.
The second stage aims to “deepen understanding” regarding the structure underlying the provision of a sustainable flow of selected ecosystem services. In the case study, this stage was developed through a participatory systems mapping approach. Inter-organisational stakeholder groups collaborated in the conceptualization of feedback processes characterizing ecosystem services during a group modelling workshop, which allowed to share insights on the underlying cause-effect mechanisms and leverage points, supporting the identification of interrelationships among different ecosystem services and the selection of key indicators for management processes.
The framework ultimately envisages to engage stakeholders in the “articulate values” stage. A third participatory workshop is proposed to integrate multiple ecosystem services values in the context of a real world decision-making process. In the Arrábida Natural Park, participants were asked to deliberate on social, biophysical and economic criteria associated to different alternative policies for the protected area, as well as to define decision rules that foster integration of different value dimensions to inform decision-making processes. Using participation as a value articulating institution, stakeholders were engaged in a process to select, discuss and articulate several and distinct ecosystem services value dimensions regarding two decision contexts – a land use conflict and a project evaluation process.
The empirical results and participants’ evaluation support the conclusion that the developed conceptual framework is able to provide a coherent platform to engage stakeholders in ecosystem services scoping, assessment and decision support tasks. Ultimately, the proposed framework offers structured guidelines for puzzling out multiple value dimensions of ecosystem services, which may be further applied to different types of ecosystems and decision processes.
Descrição
Palavras-chave
Ecosystem services Participatory framework Multiple value dimensions Mixed methods Protected areas Stakeholder engagement