Cultural Ecosystem Services

Posted by: EcoServices Network 4 years, 5 months ago

Capturing the life-enriching and life-affirming contributions ecosystems make to human well-being.

By Jon Weller

Wetlands are consistently cited as some of the most important ecosystems on the landscape, serving a wide variety of complex ecosystem functions. They are important habitat for a host of flora and fauna; the chatter of birds and lush growth are testaments to these areas’ productivity and the rich biodiversity they support.

Below the surface, wetlands provide a range of crucial stabilization and filtration functions. They receive and filter water and waste from both natural and human sources, cleaning polluted waters and protecting shorelines from damage. They store water above ground and recharge aquifers, stabilizing water supplies and mitigating both floods and drought. They also act as carbon sinks and climate stabilizers that can alter and mitigate changes associated with a warming world.

More to offer
These ecosystem services (ES) are recognized as crucial contributions to human well-being. Yet, in addition to the above, wetlands, along with the rest of the natural world, provide a wider range of services to people that go far beyond these material processes.

Ecosystem services are the benefits people obtain from ecosystems. These include provisioning services such as food, water, timber, and fibre; regulating services such as regulation of floods, drought, land degradation, and disease; supporting services such as soil formation and nutrient cycling; and cultural services such as recreational, spiritual, religious and other nonmaterial benefits. Source: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Synthesis Report

Wetlands are also, and some may argue just as importantly, places with histories, places that people care about, places that for many people embody a sense of belonging and purpose that gives meaning to life.

Over the past decade, the concept of cultural ecosystem services has emerged as a means to capture the life-enriching and life-affirming contributions ecosystems make to human well-being. These ‘non-material’ benefits are the product of a complex set of interactions between people and the environment and are readily recognized as essential for individual and community well-being, as well as the long-term sustainability of societies.

However, like all things human, cultural ecosystem services are complex.

Rethinking the approach
Despite the obvious cultural importance of ecosystems to individual and community well-being, the difficulty of capturing and quantifying, in biophysical or nonmonetary terms, cultural ecosystem services has limited their integration into land use management processes.

While it may be relatively straightforward to identify and quantify the ways a wetland helps reduce drought in a region, it is more difficult to determine the ways in which that same ecosystem contributes to the intellectual and spiritual well-being of a diverse population. People have different histories, traditions, connections and preferences that shape the ways in which they derive value from an ecosystem. All of these perspectives are valid and worth acknowledging, but they create a complex web of relationships with an area.

To respectfully engage with cultural ecosystem services, and bring a consideration of these services into conservation and land management processes, it is necessary to rethink the ways in which we gather information about the value of ecosystems.

Objective, scientific evaluations of ecosystems to determine the value they produce for people must be coupled with deliberative and participatory valuation methods. Ultimately, it is those same diverse populations whose well-being is enhanced by an ecosystem who must be involved in determining value and making environmental and land management decisions.

Cultural ES in the Beaver Hills
The Beaver Hills region of Alberta faces considerable environmental challenges arising out of rapid urban and semi-rural growth. An increasing human footprint in the area is creating pressures on the ecosystems that make up this region and threaten to reduce the quality of the ecosystem services that many people rely upon.

While the Beaver Hills region is invaluable as a source of food, livelihoods, biodiversity, settlement and quality water, it is also an area of deep cultural connection. For many who live in the area, the unique wetland ecosystems of the Beaver Hills are a source of personal identity, recreation, inspiration and meaning. For the Indigenous and Métis peoples of the region, the wetlands and the landscape they are a part of are integral components of their traditional territory, ways of life, worldviews and ongoing livelihoods. In all cases, the maintenance of these cultural dimensions relies upon the health and proper functioning of the overall ecosystems.

To support the conservation and stewardship of wetland ecosystems in the region, the Beaver Hills Biosphere Reserve Association works with the concept of ecosystem services to understand the myriad ways that people benefit from the environment and design innovative solutions for protecting this unique area.