General comments on the book chapter

I also think the chapter needs a clearer and explicit argument for why it makes sense to bring natural capital and ecosystem services into the same chapter as human well being. In a sense this chapter takes the two topics discussed in the last chapter (human systems and environment systems coupled together) and discusses them again with a new set of jargon. I am not arguing that its not important to piece out the various types of environment systems and services and the various impacts human well being has on this system and this system has on human well being, but I need to better understand how this chapter is different from the last chapter and why its useful to discuss both natural systems and human well being in the same chapter when you first introduce them instead of drilling down one each topic in separate chapters and then brining them together latter. (Im not arguing that the current outline is not the best outline, I just think that more clarity needs to be added so that I understand better why it is organized this way). 

UNAM-CIECO  group comments on chapter 2.3 “Natural capital, services and human wellbeing”, divided by sections:

General comments

It could be useful in the chapter, to give a brief description about the origin and “evolution” of the Natural Capital concept. This will give an overview of how economics influence the concept and how it is currently conceived in developed and developing countries. Definition of other economic concepts (as shadow price) employed in the chapter will be useful too.

Dynamics of natural capital

Considering the “patchiness” distribution of natural capital in space and time, is probable, for example, that in some regions food production is not the appropriate option (e.g. the region presents better conditions for timber extraction). If a large set of countries have the objective to become food self-sufficient, how can we deal with a particular need (food) and the lack of the resource or service to satisfy that need (e.g. good land for agriculture)?  

If much of our activities have affected the world making it more homogeneous, how this will affect the patchiness distribution of capital natural and our wellbeing? Which could be the consequences to crop rice or corn all over the world?

Disturbance regime

Every year a lot of cities and towns are affected by different disturbance regimes: floods, fires, hurricanes, etc. Despite we have no predictability about the exact time disturbance is going to happen, we know it will happen sooner or later. After the disturbance, all efforts are automatically concentrated in the reconstruction of the city or town. Sure this is not a sustainability behavior, and some of the challenges are:

-How to integrate the disturbance regime into the decision-making policy to avoid the circle destruction-reconstruction of a town?

- How to decrease people vulnerability of these cities and towns?

I think that both Alicia and the UNAM-CIECO students did a great job addressing many of the larger, over-arching issues in this chapter, so I am choosing to focus on one topic in particular--the concept of “wellbeing”.

Emphasizing “Wellbeing”

Simply put, I think that “Chapter 2.3: Natural Capital, Services and Human Wellbeing” could have been more appropriately titled “Chapter 2.3: Natural Capital, Services”.   While the chapter did briefly identify some important linkages between “wellbeing” and ecosystem services (such as the idea that the presence/absence of an ecosystem service does not automatically equate to the existence or lack of “wellbeing”, the fact that assigning weights to indicators of wellbeing is a value-laden process), the conclusions drawn in “2.3.4: Links to Human Outcomes” were essentially ignored for the rest of the chapter.  At the end of each of the subsequent sections, I found myself asking “how do these drivers/characteristics/factors of ecosystem services and natural capital relate to human wellbeing?”  I strongly believe that wellbeing must be more explicitly tied into all of the sections.

Critically Engaging with the Question: “What Is Wellbeing?”

While there is a brief discussion of “wellbeing” as material, indicator-based, and connected to the natural systems, I found the chapter to shrug of this very important question by stating “…many ambiguities and uncertainties exist in the linkage of ecosystem services to human wellbeing.  Further research is needed to understand how the full spectrum of ecosystem services affect all aspects of human wellbeing…”  While this is certainly true, the chapter then proceeds to spend a great deal of time explaining the intricacies of natural capital and ecosystem services, without providing the same critical examination of “wellbeing”.

Acknowledging that Ecosystem Services Both Increase AND DIMINISH Wellbeing:

The chapter contains an implicit blanket assumption that “preserving” natural capital and “improving” ecosystem services will in some way improve human well being—but this is not necessarily the case.  In fact, it is critically important to recognize that ecosystem services can also decrease human wellbeing.  For example, sustainability advocates argue for “preserving” New England fisheries by banning cod fishing (so as to improve the stocks of fish)—but this takes away the livelihoods of hundreds and maybe thousands of fishermen/fisherwomen.  Certainly increasing this ecosystem service has negative effects on wellbeing, depending on whose wellbeing you focus on.

Another example is groundwater use in India.  Some have argued for banning tubewell construction in Gujarat, India to “preserve” the water table and prevent the overexploitation of groundwater there.  However, this means that many poor inhabitants have to buy their water from those that have already drilled wells—often at very high costs, which makes other goods necessary for “wellbeing” unaffordable.

Another example is a forest fire that provides the essential ecosystem service of allowing some species of trees to reproduce, thereby increasing the natural capital stock of timber and preserving the ecosystem service of erosion control (among others).  HOWEVER, a forest fire also destroys other trees and organisms, including the homes of humans.  How will we assess human wellbeing based on this?  Can we assign negative monetary prices to the value of the forest fire based on the number of homes it destroyed, but positive monetary value based on the number of trees that began to grow as a result?

All changes in natural capital and ecosystem services will have positive AND negative effects on human wellbeing—therefore we are going to have to choose whose wellbeing we are concerned with in order to more rigorously assess the implications for "wellbeing".  In addition, we are going to have to acknowledge that some ecosystem services will detract from wellbeing, and therefore we must grapple with ways to account for this in our indicators and metrics (if we choose to rely on indicators and metrics).

Additional Take Away Points:

1. Framing matters—for defining, intervening in, and improving ecosystem services, natural capital AND wellbeing.  How we frame the spatial, temporal, and participant factors will determine how ecosystem services, natural capital and wellbeing are affected.  Framing will also determine what factors you choose to take as endogenous and exogenous.
2. Sustainability science is value-laden.  Value judgments will occur, even when deciding what your frames and definitions of “wellbeing” are.  This is necessary!  The best thing to do is just to be explicit about what values you are adopting, to realize that your own values are probably NOT entirely consistent, and to recognize that other people’s values may cause their conclusions to be different from your own.

I found Erin's points to be a model example of how to delve into the general issues brought out by the first two comments (written by Alicia and the UNAM-CIECO students).  I strongly agree that this concept of well-being needed to be interwoven into the chapter in a much more concrete way, and perhaps even used as a unifying idea throughout explorations of natural capital.  I think that, in a way, this topic also ties into one of the questions posed by the University of Minnesota student group: "Tradeoffs. What are tradeoffs among/between different ecosystem services (provisioning, regulating, etc.)? What are the tradeoffs among different beneficiaries of ecosystem services (across time, space, culture, economic strata, etc.)?"  I believe that this topic was posed by this week's student group because it was a question that this chapter naturally made one consider, yet did not tangibly address.  That the students found an absence of answers to this complex question speaks strongly to the need to incorporate explorations into various types of well-being, both human and not, into the chapter.  I found the chapter to be extremely informative and interesting to read, yet, echoing those who posted before me, did not connect various topics and ideas in a way that made the information presented as meaningful and relevant to the rest of what we have learned and what we hope to learn.

To go in a different direction, though I am no expert on tradeoffs, I think that one idea to consider when thinking about tradeoffs is that we live in a spatially finite, yet temporally indefinite world.  Certainly we must decide now how to break up the truly bounded supply of land and resources available, but we must also do so with an unfathomable number of generations in the future in mind, generations that may be culturally and economically very different than we are today.  I am not quite sure how to create a concrete answer to the University of Minnesota's question from this idea, but I do think it's interesting to consider tradeoffs with this in mind.

.  It's been interesting so far.  I'm not sure how it has been accepted within the sustainability/environmental world, but I think its ideas about how to incorporate environmental issues into the business world are definitely something to consider.

Below and attached are the synthesized comments of the ASU team...

Arijit Guha, Marci Baranski, Karina Benessaiah, Chad Monfreda, Christina Wong

Week 5 Synthesis

11 October 2010

The chapter provides a good overview of the concept of ecosystem services, natural capital, the concepts and processes associated with them, and their dynamics.  It is well-written, generally easy to understand, and logically organized. However, discussion amongst the members of the ASU group makes clear that there are numerous areas in which the chapter could be improved.

First, returning to a point the ASU group has made already, the organization of the chapter would improve greatly with the authors making three points at the beginning of the section: (1) explaining in greater detail what the chapter will cover; (2) connecting the chapter’s content with the rest of the book; and (3) identifying how the chapter presents ideas necessary for the study of sustainability science. For example, the chapter would benefit from more clearly linking the ideas discussed here to the CHES framework identified in the previous chapter, while the text would be improved by connecting the authors’ ideas to previous research traditions and ideas, and explaining in detail how/why the authors’ ideas build on and improve on previous ideas in a manner necessary for the study to sustainability science. If sustainability science is indeed a new field and representative of a new approach to human-environment relations, each chapter must clearly articulate how it contributes to this emerging discipline.

On a related note of how the overall book and individual chapters are structured and written, there seem to be tensions and inconsistencies within and among the chapters regarding the intended audience. In this chapter, for instance, certain terms coming from the ecological sciences like “state” and “function” used without explanation. If anyone aside from an expert audience is expected to pick up this book, then terms and concepts should be better defined before they are used. Meanwhile, if the intended audience is supposed to be a group of already highly-educated sustainability scientists, then the material may be a bit too detailed regarding ecosystem services, yet still too vague and not detailed enough regarding their complex interactions in the human environment system.

With regard to terminology and language, on the key points of this chapter, the authors could provide greater clarity. The authors assert a distinction between global assessments of ecosystem services and primary research on biophysical processes, for example.  What exactly this conceptual difference consists of is not clear, however — besides the difference in scale of the institutions doing the research and assessment. The authors are similarly unclear when discussing ecosystem and environmental service; the similarities and differences between environmental services and ecosystem services is not made clear enough.  In the introductory chapter, the term environmental services was introduced, yet this chapter seemingly at times uses the terms interchangeably and, as such, does not explain why the authors of the volume have agreed to use the term environmental service at all (rather than the accepted nomenclature of ecosystem services), and why such a conceptualization is superior and necessary for sustainability science.

This leads to another point brought up during discussion amongst the ASU group: in the conceptualization of environmental services used here, it is the services themselves that are valued (meaning those services which have been identified by humanity as being important) rather than the larger set of earth system functions that are necessary for life — even if they have not yet been recognized for their importance.  That is, so far as we understand it: natural capital has the capacity to provide ecosystem services, but does not necessarily by definition — whereas, ecosystem services by definition provide something of value to humans.  Clarification on this distinction would be appreciated; the readers would benefit from some discussion about whether indeed the ecosystem/environmental services framing is too narrow and fails to recognize the importance of unknown but important environmental and earth systems processes.

Additionally, though promised by the chapter title, the chapter itself does not expand sufficiently into dimensions of human well-being. We are left wondering how these different interacting ecosystem services relate to different conceptualizations of human well-being. Interestingly, there is no discussion of what well-being is and what it encompasses (beyond the broad categories listed in the figures and tables and drawn from the MA) and how different disciplines/sectors may define human well-being beyond an ecosystem/environmental services framework. We recognize that well-being is covered in greater detail in its own chapter, but nonetheless a stronger linkage between the ideas here and human well-being could and should be established in this chapter.

Lastly, the section invoking Kates and Parris’ work on competing conceptualizations of sustainability (“assigning weights is a value-laden process and therefore subject to debate”) is very useful as it builds upon the argument made by Bill Clark in the introduction: that values matter and the very idea of sustainability is a normative judgment, and there are competing definitions. Nonetheless, in section 2.3.3, this idea is ignored and the authors remark that the main challenge in assigning economic value to ecosystem services is the “lack of data.” No doubt more data is needed to better understand the functioning of the earth system, but the fact remains that economic valuation of ecosystem services is contingent upon having identified underlying issues of societal values and preferences. Identifying the only barrier as lack of data fails to tell the whole story.

Specific comments:

P1-.2 The authors state that “understanding dynamics of ecosystems and benefits they provide for humans […] has emerged more directly from biophysical research on the structure and function of ecosystems”. I was wondering if other type of research- for instance social or applied conservation- did not also influence that understanding. [Karina Benessaiah]

p.2 “A host of human and social processes- demography […]-interact with human well-being and are also …” What is the difference between a human and a social process? Also, I would replace interact (in italics here) by shape human well-being. Human well-being is not something that interacts with other factors but a property of these interacting factors. [Karina Benessaiah]

P. 3 Why not call, as Billie mentions frequently, earth and ecosystem services, environmental services? To be clear that it includes both these dimensions? [Karina Benessaiah]

P.4 Valuation is mentioned to be impossible for some regulating services, I would also add that it is impossible for some cultural services (i.e. the sacred). [Karina Benessaiah]

P. 5 may help decision-makers recognize threshold that should not be transgressed- an example would be welcome here. [Karina Benessaiah]

P.6 “Natural capital is often linked more directly to the well-being of the most vulnerable”- this should probably be either referenced or hedged as a statement since I don’t think it’s universally accepted. [Karina Benessaiah]

P.8 Nutrient mobilization section- a bit too descriptive as a section. [Karina Benessaiah]

P. 12 “studies of earth system history reveal no balance of nature”- what do you mean here? That there is (theoretically) such a thing as a balance of nature but it was never achieved or that the concept of balance of nature itself does not exist (panarchy)? [Karina Benessaiah]

Chapter 2.3: Natural Capital Services

Synthesized Comments, University of Minnesota

            In general, students at the University of Minnesota were highly engaged in this chapter and agreed that it inspired the most substantive and lively discussion of the semester.  Controversy among participants centered primarily around whether the chapter was sufficiently concrete.

Balance of theory and examples (stocks and flows model)

•  This chapter did a better job than earlier chapters of bringing material “down from the ether” and establishing a framework that students could easily make connections with

•  Framing natural capital as a set of stocks and flows was commonly cited as a helpful framework, particularly since it makes it easy for students to draw implicit connections to the private sector or, more simply, to the marketplace in general

•  Incorporation of examples useful (box 2.3.1, examples in text itself, etc.)

•  Along those lines, many noted that even more concrete examples would have been desirable - in particular, the work that Steve Carpenter has been working on at Wisconsin and that was featured in his presentation would have made a welcome addition to the chapter (perhaps as an inset box, a la 2.3.1).  Other “nitty-gritty” examples from the presentations (shrimp farming and mangrove distribution?) could also integrate well

•  Adding explicit study results in side boxes has the added advantage of providing parallel sets of material (a deeper and less deep set of information) to keep things from being too general for the more informed reader

Discussion of Alternative Stable States

•  In keeping with our enthusiasm for the more concrete nature of this chapter, we also generally agreed that the chapter benefitted from relatively explicit discussion of some of the monkey wrenches in natural capital valuation, particularly the discussion of alternative stable states (mentioned as tipping points/nonlinearity) and the portions of the chapter about interactions between temporal and spatial scales

•  Some in our group did not think that these mentions went far enough

•  Perhaps instead of dancing around alternative stable states via oblique references to nonlinearity, this would be a good place to incorporate some results from an alt. stable states study?

Possibility of Drawing the Connection to Economic Theory/PES Intellectual History

•  We noted that natural capital is a reframing of externalities and tragedy of the commons from classical economic theory, but that those historical connections are often only clear to economists reading about PES who are already familiar with the applicable jargon

•  There could be a role in the chapter for a quick paragraph or two with the prior intellectual history of PES and natural capital (akin to Carpenter’s comments at the outset of his presentation).  This could also be incorporated as a side inset box.

Potential Conflation of Biodiversity as Supporting Service vs. as Capital

•  There was some worry that on Monday it had been taken for granted that biodiversity is a critical part of natural capital, particularly given the controversy about biodiversity’s importance to ecosystem services in and of itself among the scientific community (MA assessment, etc.)

•  Within the chapter there is more consistency: biodiversity is called natural capital and also implied to be linked to supporting services in the chapter, never mentioned as a service explicitly either in the text or in diagrams.

•  That said, the distinction might benefit from a more explicit discussion of why biodiversity is being considered a portion of nat capital (why, for example, the commonly cited “option value” of biodiversity doesn’t elevate biodiv into the services category of the discussion)

Some small notes

•  Loved figure 2.3.3 (the hexagon of diff angles)!

•  Loved the MA figure and the “all possible futures” figure from Carpenter’s presentation - incorporate these into chapter?

•  Liked that intrinsic valuation has been underplayed (but not unmentioned) throughout the book and in this chapter

•  Dreadfully inconsistent use of the oxford comma

•  Some terminology confusion: earth system services vs. ecosystem services vs just plain “services” which is the title of the chapter