The social process of ESS generation and value attribution

Dr. J. H. Spangenberg, ESS Valuation, Marseille, May 2015

The social process of ESS generation and value attribution

Presentation at the May 29th, 2015, Marseille University seminar onValuation of Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity: Challenges and New Trends

Dr. Joachim H. Spangenberg a, b

a UFZ Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Dept. Community Ecology, Halleb Sustainable Europe Research Institute SERI Germany e.V., Cologne, Germany


The ESS Definition


Two ESS DefinitionsEcosystem Services are (i) “free gifts of nature to humankind”,

"the benefits people obtain from ecosystems” (MA 2005)

OR ARE THEY(according to Harrington et al. 2010)

(ii) “the benefits that humans recognise as obtained from an ecosystem and that support, directly or indirectly, their survival and quality of life”


Are ESS (i) “objective” benefits or (ii) subjective, recognised as benefits? Who decides is a matter of democracy: Experts? Governments? Stakeholders (and if so, on which scale)?Economic values are always subjective, implying definition (ii). But in absence of a market valuation is empirical work. Many economists use definition (i).

ESS Definitions – a decisive choice

Dr. Joachim H. Spangenberg, Biodiversity and SPAC, Belgrade 9.10. 07

A mangrove forest may provide flood protection, but this is not an ESS unless recognised as such and as provided by the ecosystem

(ii): No recognition, no service


The social process of ESS co-production: the “Cascade”


Biophysical structure or process

(e.g. woodland habitat or net

primary productivity )

Service(e.g. flood

protection, or harvestable products)

Function(e.g. slow

passage of water, or biomass)

Benefit(e.g. contribution to

aspects of well-being such as

health and safety)

Σ Pressures

Limit pressures via policy action?

Value(e.g. willingness to pay for woodland protection or for

more woodland, or harvestable products)

Source: Potschin, M. and R. Haines-Young (2011): Ecosystem Services: Exploring a geographical perspective. Progress in Physical Geography 35(5): 575-594. - Adapted after: Haines-Young, R. & Potschin, M. (2010): The links between biodiversity, ecosystem services and human well-being. In: Raffaelli, D. & C. Frid (eds.): Ecosystem Ecology: a new synthesis. BES Ecological Reviews Series, CUP, Cambridge, p.110-139.

The starting point:Potschin & Haines-Young (2011)

The starting point:Potschin & Haines-Young (2011)

The „Cascade Model“ is a metaphor suitable to accommodate the step-by-

step social process analysis not inherent to this original version.


…each step flows “naturally” from the previous: structures determine functions which determine ESS which determine benefits which determine value.…who gets what seems to be a natural process, legitimising current distribution: risk of a new variant of social Darwinism.…value is monetary, also for non-market ESS, implying commodification: what is measured in € is a (suggested) price, no value

In this cascade…


The modified ESS Cascade(Spangenberg et al. 2014)

The bio-sphere in one box: structures, prpocesses& functions

Modifications step by step


The ESS Cascade(Spangenberg et al. 2014)

Addingservicepotentials



A focus on the process: attributingvalues, mobilising, appropriating, commercialising services



Mobilisation and appropriation require investments of time, resources and labour

Classical economics terminology:Use value – keep and enjoyExchange value - sell



The overlaprequires trans-

disciplinarity

Which ESP is mobilised, which ESS are generated, who appropriates them and reaps the benefits,

are matters of (political) power

Dr. J. H. Spangenberg, ESS Valuation, Marseille, May 2015Use value is non-monetary, exchange value is a price



Ecosystem services: no free gifts of naturebut a human view on nature’s riches

Gansu

GansuShanxi

Sichuan


The different character of cultural ESS


Orders of system complexityAfter M.A.K Halliday (2005)

Physical system

Biological system… plus life

Social system… plus usefulness

Purposeful organization

Semiotic system… plus meaning

Articulation of values, world views

Sust

aina

bilit

y


Cultural ESS are different

Cultural ESS do not refer to objects distinct from provisioning or regulating ESS (goods, services, processes, structures, experiences). Rather they refer to the cultural significance attributed to an object by the semiotic system of a society: each biophysical or social entity can have such significance.


Dr Joach m H Spangenberg, B od vers ty and SPAC Be grade 9 10 07

Provisioning and regulating ESS are cultural, as is their result and the processes and tools generating them.Even economic valuation itself, as a social process, has a cultural significance and thus a cultural value.


Orders of system complexityConfusing units


The basic mistake of economics is not to consider the semiotic system but taking the meaning of value as predefined, as maximising utility. Economic analyses always measure the combined cultural and utilitarian value.The TEV, even when incorporating non-use values, explains behaviour as a result of individual satisfaction.Social value and altruistic orientations are defined away by explaining them as utility gained from doing good or respecting norms.

Beyond economic valuation


Different groups, agents, stakeholders and cultures have different world views and thus attribute diffe-rent service potentials to the same functions & gain different benefits from the same service.Environmental con-flicts begin right here. It’s a socio-cultural and political balancing act!!


Ecosystem services: values no money can buytraditional, aesthetic, spiritual, symbolic, …


Thus in ecosystem service valuation, monetisation comes last – if at all necessary


Political application


In an environmental economics framework, ESS are valued like any other good by supply and demand. Optimal conservation is given where they meet. This depends on knowledge, income levels, current lifestyle,…

In ecological economics, prices do not express the value of a good but are agreements about the conditions of exchange.

In ecology, substitutes are functionally equivalent populations (same guild or functional group).

In philosophy (Immanuel Kant), what can be replaced has a price, but what is unique (like a species) has a dignity.

In sociology, anthropology, cultural sciences, psychology,…

In valuing ESS, transdisciplinary methods are necessary, describing complementary aspectsof value. No discipline can claim dominance.

Which science to chose?


So far, social issues play no role in ESS Research. That would change in a political economy interpretation: Ecosystem services are no free gifts of nature, but are

co-produced by humans using nature.What is produced is a political decision, no “natural state”

from democratic compromise to autocratic plans and pets. Distribution of access to benefits is a social conflict issue. Valuation must not neglect the non-market benefits. Environmental justice conflicts around the world are mostly

conflicts over the definition and exploitation of ESS. ESS research must recognise the risk of

disservice provision.

A political economy understanding


A political economy approach is necessary for applying the cascade to landscape management: the Stairways


Some conclusions• Ecosystem services are no free gifts of

nature but the result of co-production in of the environmental and social system and their processes.

• They incorporate simultaneously economic, social and cultural values which cannot be disentagled.

• Anthroposphere and biosphere over-lap, requiring transdisciplinarity.

• Use value precedes exchange value.


We have become far too cleverto survive without wisdom

E. F. Schumacher

Thank you foryour attention

For the presentationand other papers see

http://seri.academia.edu/JoachimHSpangenberg


Bonus Slides


Natural Capital NC


• ESS have been defined as the goods flowing from Natural Capital stocks.

• The objective is stabilising stocks to sustain flows (Hicks’ian income)

• As such, ESS are free gifts of nature which can be measured in monetary units.

• Valuation underpins and direct sustainable management strategies.

Natural Capital


Human made capital

Natural capital

Human capital Social capital


To generate a constant flow of income by- sustaining the sum of all capital stocks,

assuming comparability and substitutatbility, (weak sustainability), OR

- preserving each stock separately, assuming complementarity & co-production (strong sustainability).

The Environmental Economics Approach: Sustaining the Capital Stocks


Identifying Services

ESP:ESB:ESS benefits

Converted:

(semi-) natural,

& aban-donned: Not (yet) used:

High/lowintensity use:


• Capital stocks have a size, but no quality: Biodiversity is an abstract good, a quality.

• Elements are considered independent, values cumulative, not conditional.

• Sustainability is a long-term process, at odds with economic discounting.

The benefits

The downsides

• Established methodology, the basis of capital stock valuation, well suited for market goods.

• Significant amounts of data are available.


Monetising the value of ESS


A basic category error underlying the economic argumentation is confusing the non-existence of an economic value (question: “which other value does exist”?) with the existence of an economic value of zero (question: “what is the right economic value?”)

Economists argue that the price for ESS is often zero, and monetary valuation leads to better policy decisions.

These are two errors.


Economists claim that pricing ESS supports conservation. They know in advance what their analysis will show. Thus the analysis is either fake or superfluous.

Decision makers care for cash, real money flows, into and out of their budget, and the risks thereof. That includes damage cost, repair cost, avoidance cost, replacement cost – real or hypothetical, but in real markets.

They tend to ignore hypothetical values from WTP analyses– they are as real and solid as stock exchange values, hypothetical prices in hypothetical markets.

Do decision makers need prices?


ESS in Sustainable Development


“Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts two key concepts: …


(1. The concept of “needs”, in particular the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which overriding priority should be given, and2. The idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organisation on the environment’s ability to meet present and future needs.”(WCED 1987, p.43)


Sustainable development is development that provides sufficient ESS to the present generation without comprising the ability of future generations to generate sufficient ESS to satisfy their own needs” ESS provision must respect the limits,

otherwise dis-services would overcompensate the gains. In use value attribution,

the needs of the poor should play a decisive role. In ESS appropriation, they must be the prime beneficiaries

to lift them out of poverty of resource access. Betterment of their lives does not require commercialisation.

Sustainability in ESS parlance

The social process of ESS generation and value attribution

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