What are the key difficulties in the quantification of cultural value of ecosystem
services and hence, to what extent should this have over wider decision making?
Summary: Ecosystem services can be described as the benefits that society gains from the natural
environment which are then often grouped into four categories; supporting, provisioning,
regulating and cultural services1. With the objective of slowing biodiversity loss while increasing
agricultural productivity to meet growing demands, recent research has aimed to incorporate this
framework into practical strategy and decision making2,3. However, this is made easier by
economic valuation of services to enable ranking of importance of certain services allowing
prioritization given the limited resources available to rectify the global issues4. Unfortunately
intangible, cultural services are problematic when assigning worth as value is subjective, based
on personal, religious or bequest values and hence are often regarded as externalities to the other
services5,6. Here I show the range of issues regarding cultural service valuation and explore
possible means to improve accuracy and validity of results for future policy.
The ecosystem services framework7 is increasingly advocated as a pragmatic and operative approach to
integrating ecological and economic research into effective assessment and decision-making for the
world’s provisioning and conservation issues8,9. Various definitions of ecosystem services (ES) have
been presented, reflecting human attitudes towards dominion over the natural system. These therefore
mainly describe ourselves as key beneficiaries of the flow of resources provided by the environment,
which may be quantified as natural capital, relative to manufactured and social capital10. The
framework, which was notably adopted by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) 1
development of the United Nations in 2005 is now widely accepted as a formal tool to clarify trade-offs
between scientists and stakeholders by internalising the myriad of benefits that ecosystems provide to
people. The framework uses a pragmatic approach to classify services into four categories; supporting,
provisioning, regulating and cultural (Figure 1), encompassing the material gains such as fresh water
and fuels, to the non-material, cultural benefits valued through intangible interactions with nature such
as religious or recreational use5.
Fig. 1. The framework taken from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment1 conveys the four main classifications of
ES relative to their contribution to the constituents of well-being. Arrow colour relates to ‘potential for mediation
by socioeconomic factors’ while width refers to intensity of the linkage. Note that arrows stemming from cultural
ES tend to be narrow and pale, indicating relative insignificance or perhaps lack of conviction in any conclusions
made.
While the importance of cultural ecosystem services benefits is generally accepted within international
environmental science communities, the challenge of their quantification is a subject of much debate.
Gould et al.11 focus on the pervasive value of cultural services on a multitude of cognitive levels within
various communities, however the difficulty of valuation in monetary terms often results in cultural
services being dismissed as externalities. This marginalisation within related research is primarily due
to the need by economists to valorise ecosystems often leading to the misrepresentation of social
perspectives despite a widespread appreciation of the interconnectivity across the ES framework12.
Daniel et al. 13 emphasise the extent of the interconnection with relation to the original framework,
arguing that such multifaceted integration of cultural services with other tangible services both
highlights their importance and the “challenge to be addressed in their identification, assessment and
management”. Hence, the gap produced within ecosystem services literature is plagued by extensive
discussion as to the most appropriate methods for quantification and later integration into policy
development while satisfying the desires of stakeholders which have critical influence over the success
of projects11.
Significant research encouraged by proponents of positive environmental policy making has improved
valuation techniques, however the ubiquity of intangible values and the complexity of their valuation
has often resulted in their misrepresentation14. Costanza et al.15 was one of the first to quantify the
intrinsic values of nature on a global scale but has since been criticised for attempting to value cultural
services using the same methods as biophysical facets, built upon later by the first ‘The Economics of
Ecosystems and Biodiversity’ (TEEB) report in 201016, which further aimed to internalise valuation for
successful policymaking. Contrastingly, many studies also succeed in describing cultural services and
their significance but tend to discount their monetary value in favour of material considerations 17.
However, this may be due to an inappropriate approach to the issue, reductionism can be applied
successfully to simplify such challenges by identifying the key issues in valuing CES and hence tackling
each problem separately to come to a positive conclusion. Nevertheless, the value of some tangible
services are dependent upon immaterial context proving CES worth, such as produce of the Champagne
region or Darjeeling tea gaining higher market value than analogous goods13.
The first issue is a matter of interconnection. While some services may be valued independently, many
overlap either by definition or through co-dependency, where the benefits gleaned are only available
due to another ‘stem’ service18. This may occur not only between discrete cultural services but also
between the four, wider ecosystem service categories, favouring ‘double-counting’ which may lead to
inaccurate assessment19. This is mainly because many tangible services have intangible dimensions
either through the production of material gain such as employment, or the instigation of benefit such as
social cohesion or stimulus, preventing a simple count method of valuation. For example, when fox
hunting was banned in England and Wales in 200420, the economic cost was calculated through
increased loss of livestock by fox kills, however hunting also sustained tradition, heritage and recreation
which could arguably not be replaced by any similar activity.
This relates strongly to the incommensurability of cultural services; a lack of comparison between CES
and other ES which prevents relative valuation with regards to further decision-making1,21. This is often
partially due to a lack of desire to equate a benefit to an alternative: many services have religious,
spiritual or bequest value, often based upon personal preference and/or experience which cannot be
easily explained or compared due to variation in context and contemplation; the paradox of valuation5.
Hence, a common outlook is that nature is infinitely valuable and irreplaceable, however this argument
cannot stand in the coming era of compromise3. It is contended that while many CES cannot be wholly
compared, many benefits have comparable attributes allowing perspective in the face of change from
their ‘ideal’ condition5. Therefore, the value of the untouched state may be likened to that of unwanted
alteration, permitting appraisal.
Such dynamism in opinion is thus highly dependent on the stakeholders lobbying for CES worth; their
views, conceptualisations and in the context of research, their ability to understand and communicate
benefits in the context of ES. For example, Gould et al.11 highlight the variability in perception of worth
of similar CES in two locations (diverse in their focal ecosystems, contexts and participant), revealing
the unpredictability in consideration of worth and value. Hence, the socioeconomic relationships of a
given CES are challenging to define on both local and global scales however, useful qualitative
information may be gleaned through appropriate interview protocols11. Assessment in interdisciplinary
focus groups has been found to be most effective22,23 in eliciting broad views covering the larger ES
framework1 as a shared, global issue, encouraging interviewees to convey values colloquially under
systematic questioning24. Nevertheless this may also elicit framing effects, favouring the status quo
and marginalising smaller (or absent/future) groups, though discussion may aid determination of
relative importance, mitigating incommensurability 25.
Variability of views regarding CES is most often dependent on geographic region and economic
development26. The very perception of value is relative to the economic status of the stakeholders which
is often community-wide. For those struggling to survive, cultural services may be considered a luxury,
second to the need for provisioning services such as food, however in analogous, often remote
communities poverty makes CES even more valuable, significantly enriching their lives through
religion, community and identity27. Due to such poverty, valuation of CES using purely economic ideas
may discount the large impoverished population due to an inability to pay28.
An economic approach to quantification is possible but may be highly subjective and time-consuming,
and therefore perhaps not worth problems associated with these constraints given the ever increasing
pressure of global change, biodiversity loss and the reliance on a narrow ES framework. It would
perhaps more appropriate to use scaling measure29 or multiple classification system30 to give relative
importance within a broadened framework, then apply economic values democratically by
commensuration with analogous, material entities or benefits in order to legitimately integrate into
further decision-making. This should reduce the view that some things have infinite value and the
chance of invalidity via double-counting and value pluralism31. This may become important as a driver
for promoting interest and support for ecosystem protection through ‘environmental stewardship’, as it
may be argued that culture more emotive than material benefit to the wider population1,8. Increasingly
CES has been integrated into policy such as the TEEB assessment of 2010 and UKNEA synthesis, 2014
mainly through research and understanding of inextricable linkages with other services16.
Fig. 2. Personally proposed framework for confronting further integration of cultural services into policy and
decision-making processes. Biophysical, economic and cultural considerations should be equally included at the
same process level to ensure equality before valuation to be presented to organisations. All decisions then feed
back into ecosystem improvement and sustainability.
To conclude, it is important that we further analyse realistic importance of CES given the rate of global
change currently experienced3,32 and maintain perspective upon the conservation of some ecosystem
services over others. While human needs span far beyond the material, it is those such as food and fresh
water that are considered basic and essential for survival, therefore in the future we must consider
relative importance when allocating conservation resources33 which will inevitably depend on area,
cultural differences and relative wealth. Hence, the valuation of cultural services within a broadened
framework is needed to drive policy and decision-making based on unbroken scientific research rather
than political compromise for a fair and sustainable outcome.
Word count: 1462
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