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Transcript
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