Download Making Sense of Ecosystem Services

International Workshop on
Making Sense of Ecosystem Services: Ecosocial and Institutional
Perspectives
25-27 August 2008, Koli, Finland
A collective endeavour of parsing individual insights into a coherent statement on “Why
and how ecosystem services?”
Individual insights
ES for me mostly a socially constructed phenomenon based on the abbreviation DAM
1. Diversity (ecological) everywhere based on Data (knowledge)
2. Actors, including both individuals and institutions carrying on ecological awareness
3. Multitude of frameable issues and meaning of future generations.
Stina Svels
***
Ecosystem service perspective might allow to build more intensified networks for
environmental management by integrating different disciplines, epistemologies and social
groups. Ecosystem services ‘come out‘ or they are in produced specific contexts and in
specific shapes, and in every case (process) we need to ask what type of problem and
what type of decision problems we are facing. There is need for interactional expertise,
which can translate, mediate and rework between different disciplines and social groups
in order to built new ‘knowledge communities’.
Timo P. Karjalainen
***
Overall:
• Approach to institutions and institutional economy
• Methods of scientific framing of political systems
• About warrants
• Punch of new words
• To know nice new people keen on similar issues
But about ecosystem services:
• deepening understanding how do they relate to societal systems and human world
• discussion around PES
1
Some lacking aspects that might have been concretized more:
• some examples, cases where the ES concept had been used in applied research
• the methods how to get a concrete grip to ES
Petteri Vihervaara
***
That various connotations of the concept of ecological services – especially as
something with several implicit social and political implications
Motivations for and processes around individual land owners’ entering of payment
schemes
The role of public discourses and how certain discourses get monopolized by certain
interests – new ‘flesh to that bone’.
The idea that the impasse in biodiversity conservation is related to its all-encompassing
features and the problem of setting operational goals
The idea of symbiosis – mainly spelled out as between species and is included in their
‘genetic repertoire’. What about thinking of institutions as a way of facilitating symbiosis
between human actions and between human action and the functions produced by other
species?
The productivity and danger of using analogies
Arild Vatn
***
There is promise in ecosystem services: 1) the concept offers promise to nature
conservation: it is a heuristic tool to open new insights to nature conservation (e.g. inbuilt
sense of benefits) and enable communication; 2) it is an analytical tool addressing
interdependencies between human livelihood and ecosystems; it is thus a promising
concept for us interested in doing research from a perspective that questions the
separatedness of nature and culture. Especially, Yrjö's lecture on metabolic boundaries
was inspiring and opened up possibilities to make sense of the enactment of ecosystem
services – the practical arrangements behind the services.
In this workshop we talked more about ecosystem services as an analytical concept than
its political implications. There is, however, more complexity connected to the politics of
the concept. A new question arises: How to make sense of the politics of promises? Who
is attracted by the concept? In what contexts it is used and for what purposes? What
difference does it make? What and who is left out?
2
Taru Peltola
***
Beyond the pragmatic and problematic possibility of commodification of nature, the
concept of ecosystem services could be a powerful analytical device that changes the way
environmental degradation is addressed culturally, administratively and legally.
Exercise of identifying pre-conditions for cherishing of ecosystem services in case of
climate change served to derive a number of interesting and testable hypotheses about
institutional change.
I am not alone in my environmental and political critique of Finnish forestry and the
forestry profession. Modernization is needed and social science can play a role by
changing their own practice. Social scientists should create some critical distance (i.e.,
engage in a reflexive critique) and reconsider their role in reinforcing and reproducing
two myths: 1) the sovereignty of forest landowners in forestry practice, policy analysis
and discourse, and 2) foresters’ neutrality in producing material outcomes (forest health)
and social representations of forestry practice and forestry justice. Ironically,
engagement of landowners and expressions of their interests - as constructed by social
scientists conducting surveys - serves to reinforce the representations and interests of
those that subordinate landowners; specifically, the State-Forest industry-Forestry
professional complex.
Steven Wolf
***
Ecosystem services as tool to explore institutions: The concept of ecosystem services is a
useful tool to explore institutions like natural resources law. It makes possible to pose
new questions, like what are the mechanisms which support/destroy particular ecosystem
service? After analytical phase, the concept also guides the development of institutions,
which can be either be new versions of old institutions or totally new type of institutions.
The development of new types of institutions can be based on the idea that those
benefiting from the services can be considered as guardians of the functioning of the
ecosystem services.
Jukka Similä
***
The notion of ecosystem services is a novel way to turn matters of fact into matters of
concern. As such, it has the potential to create a new public around old environmental
issues and at best to turn attention from general value issues into practical questions
concerning ecosocial viability. But what kind of environmental issues can be
meaningfully negotiated collaboratively in terms of ecosocial viability in such a way that
it really creates a new public?
3
Maria Åkerman
***
How to get rid of externalizing ecosystem services from the human sphere (set-asidethinking and other types of maintaining nature / culture dualism)? We should think
institutions to be not so much networks, but paths we are going along when figuring out
ecosystem services as important functional features including also human activities. To
what extent are institutions more paths than networks?
Ari Jokinen
***
I thought about boundaries of habitats where diversity can be rich with the species of the
two habitats mixing and “trespassing”. Boundaries, although divisive, are a source of
opportunities for new insights, functions and services, as where the systems meet each
other there is potentially more diversity than in either system alone, and the interactions
between the two systems could produce new permutations. But, about ecosystem
services, I though that they are such ecosystem functions that have some functional value
for humans. This value is not for particular individuals (like e.g. land owners, or survey
respondents) or groups (like e.g. ecologists or economists) to asses separately but a
collective valuation mechanism is required. Actually, assessments must be done in a
multitude of ways, continuously, in a dynamic fashion, as the social and ecological
systems are complex and evolve, sometimes in unpredictable ways. Although analytical
models support thinking, communicating and search for solutions, striving for closure is
futile.
Eeva Primmer
***
Ecosocial functions are patterned consequences of transactions of various living and nonliving entities. Metaphorically speaking, these functions are like rivers that run uphill –
new order emerges as old order gets sedimented or diluted. A cause follows a
consequence. Some functions are vital, usable or silently supporting for humans and their
livelihoods. They serve a purpose. Workable biodiversity policies must, then, begin with
articulation of purposes – not from getting facts, interests and values right.
Juha Hiedanpää
***
The concept of biodiversity enabled us to regard all species as having some element of an
irreducible and equal worth. Perhaps, ecosystem services will force us to focus on the
4
different types of functional interdependencies between these units, humans included. But
just like with biodiversity we bring our preconceptions into to the concept. These may
range from strong utilitarianism to much less chauvinistic attitudes. I hope ecosystem
services could come to mean site- and case-specificity, increasing collectivity (as regards
definitions, mitigation) and could be called ecosystem dependencies instead.
Ari-Pekka Auvinen
***
Ecosystem services is a perspective on the nature of human biospheric depencences. It
does (i) help to make qualitative distinctions that are applicable in specific cases; (ii) pave
the way for binding together cultural (social) & material aspects of the dependence; and
(iii) allow specification of threats to ecosystemic dependencies in particular cases. The
task is to construct problem closure case by case: to specify the challenge to established
rights and obligations, and to spell out the coordination problems (i.e., institutional
challenges) that follow.
Yrjö Haila
***
To appreciate of having a general and common concept in a multidiciplinary setting, not
because of the insights generated by the concept in itself, but because of the important
diciplinary reflections that are triggered when people from various disciplines HAVE TO
relate at the same time to the logic of a common concept, to the reasoning of other
disciplines, and to the tools of their own discipline.
Jan Tore Solstad
***
During this workshop I have learned a lot about theories behind ecosystem services
thinking. Arranging the management of ecosystem services seems to require a lot of
knowledge about the ecological and social aspects in each case. Defining the price for
ecosystem services seems to be more about the society than about the ecological
functions themselves. Also social sustainability should be carefully considered when
designing these management practices.
Ilona Mettiäinen
***
The interplay of (ecosystem service) payments and human behaviour is more complicated
than lawyers (and the public?) tend to think. Institutional economics and regulation
theory have a lot in common, but speak different languages.
5
Leila Suvantola
***
The value of ecosystem services perspective is in its vagueness, collective and flexible
definition dependency of policy and decision-making context. For me ecosystem services
are policy attached collaborative planning too of seeing human-nature systems as
complex as they are for environmental problem definition, forecasting, assessment,
avoidance and mitigation
Tarja Söderman
***
In my opinion, the concept of ecosystem services illustrates a useful new and holistic
perspective on environmental issues. Since participatory methods are valued high
nowadays, those should be used also when applying this concept. Therefore ecosystem
services should be defined with the users in question and in the level where it is used.
This is also because multi-disciplinary communication is not always that easy – and that
is why we should engage in it more often.
Vuokko Tarvainen
***
The concept of ecosystem services is more complex and multidimensional than I thought
before. I learned that ecosystem services are potential tools for many tasks and different
interest groups can use them differently. For example ecosystem services can be used as a
tool to recognize the problems and in a very optimistic view they can also offer solutions
for some problems. But mostly I see their task as connecting human beings and the nature
and to better the social acceptability of nature protection. The problem seems to be that
we still need a lot more information about the dynamics of ecosystems and cooperation
between sciences and different interest groups.
Suvi Borgström
***
Ecosystem services as a concept can help to illustrate complexity and draw attention of
the publics to the situation where an irreversible transformation from one basin of
attractors to another is possible (loss of services). Ecosystem services as a concept has the
potential to assist in initiating participative processes that enhance social learning
(preferences evolve in communicative process and a concept that enhances complexity
might assist to bring together the dimensions that help to frame the question). The
relationship between an acceptable participation process, legitimate ownership rights and
6
the necessary capacity to protect the biodiversity are at the centre of successfully using
the concept of ecosystem services. How to define the crucial processes and their
dynamics?
Jenni Kauppila
***
ES concept bring the dynamic emphasis (flow) on the static (biodiversity) concept, and
serve as potential interconnection between actors and action in the fields of
environmental and nature conservation and multiple use. It connects social and ecological
systems as one ideally alive symbiotic or weak parasitic system, still needing concrete
and symbolic boundaries when operationalised in each context.
Jani Pellikka
***
New ways of thinking about services? What is a service? For who? Only humans?
Multidiciplinary approach about services. Can non-human animals appreciate/value
“services”. Or is it only a function to be utilized? Is the concept applicable in researching
moose-wolves interactions or relations. Yes, from a anthropocentric perspective?
Different ways of using the concept: 1) analytical tool, 2) policy instrument, 3) Market
based or other kind perhaps. Old problems, new concept. Why? Is it based on an
assumption that the world is a system? What kind of a system? System with logic? Is this
way of thinking dangerous? We need space, creativity and action in order to see new
possibilities, possibilities for re-framing. We need institutions which support creativity
and action and allow space to exist in the first place. This way also disservices can at time
turn into services. It is a positive term. Does not emphasize environmental problemaspect but is aimed at something positive.
Outi Ratamäki
***
If I ever doubted it before I am now much more sure that ecosystem service is a serious
concept. This concept is useful for many reasons but one is that by using this concept we
can develop new means for understanding complexity and we can design new institutions
for living and surviving with that complexity. We have to understand the dynamic nature
of ecological systems. Processes are always multiscalar. The dynamics matter for
conservation and for sustainable use of nature. I think that I got new insights about the
issue of ecosociality - that ecology is present in human existence. There is an ecosocial
functionality, which means that interdependence and ecological context are important
things.
7
The idea of metabolic boundary was interesting. This idea needs more clarification but I
think it has deep connections to thermodynamics and because of that it is also a question
which was discussed during early development of ecological economics.
Some smaller things. Threre is no one solution. Mixes of policy measures are important.
Monetary payments may mean different things. Be careful when using the term
compensation. The question is about distribution. The issue of ignorance was interesting.
The next step will be how to put ecosystem services thinking into the implementation of
ecosystem management or ecosystem approach. We need more interdisciplinary way of
thinking. We were a multidisciplinary group. One group was missing: moral philosophers
or ethicists. There is a new emerging school in environmental ethics called ecological
ethics.
Arto Naskali
8