In their most recent
article, published in PNAS, Kai
Chan and colleagues (1) propose that framing ecosystem values in terms of relationships can
help unpack why we value nature and how research and policy might better
reflect our values. In this this thought-provoking conceptualization, Chan and
colleagues consider two primary types of relational values. First, they
consider relationships between people and places; that people value specific
places of meaning, not necessarily an ecosystem service in abstraction. Second,
they consider relationships among people that are mediated by important places
and ecosystem components. The relational values concept can be further
enhanced, however, by including not only relationships among people and between
people and the environment, but also relationships among different ecosystem
components. Such ecological relationships go beyond bio-physical processes. I
do not mean to evoke generic environmental interactions such as salmon needing
cold water and therefore needing a forested watershed. This basic biophysical
model is already captured in Chan and colleagues’ discussion of the “golden
rule” in their policy application number four (i.e., care for your place may
translate into care for someone else’s place if the two are ecologically connected).
Rather, what I mean is that the values people place on connected ecosystem
components are themselves interdependent.
This fuller picture of relational values is illustrated in how the Cree
Canadian First Nations people manage their goose hunting. I was fortunate
enough to spend several seasons living in the Cree community of Wemindji, in
James Bay, Quebec, and to learned about goose hunting, an important subsistence
and cultural activity (2). Hunting takes place in specific coastal marshes; but, prime
locations change over time as the James Bay coast rises out of the Earth’s
mantle having been depressed by the massive ice sheets that covered much of
North America during the last glacial period (2, 3). The land is still rising to this very day, causing coastal marshes
to dry up and new ones to form (2). Coastal marshes and prime goose habitats change rapidly, within the
course of human lifetimes (4).
Cree hunters often invest significant amounts of energy to build
soft infrastructure, such as mud dikes, to protect important marshes from drying
up so that future generations can hunt (2, 4). Through intergenerational use, these marshes become imbued with
history, culture, and identity and take on a value of their own (2). However, management decisions are influenced by ongoing
environmental, social, and technological changes (2). Hunters may stop maintaining a marsh if, for example, geese change
their flight paths and no longer visit an area (2). The marsh is still valued as an historic place that contributes to
people’s identity (2).
The goose and the coastal marsh each have a value that is relational
to specific Cree hunters, that cannot be reduced to one another or substituted,
and that is interdependent. The relational values in Cree goose hunting involve
social-social relationships (e.g., intergenerational use), social-ecological
relationships (e.g., hunters valuing birds and certain marshes), and
ecological-ecological relationships (e.g., spatial-temporal interactions
between geese and marshes)[1]
(Fig. 1). What we can learn from the Cree goose hunting example is how the
values people place on certain ecosystem components are interdependent with
values they have for other components.
Considering a wider array of social and ecological relationships helps
flesh out the relational value concept. It can promote cross fertilization with
other disciplines such as social network research, where social-ecological
systems are conceptualized as networks with social-social, social-ecological,
and ecological-ecological relations (6). Such collaborations will hopefully lead to theoretical and
methodological advances that will help us achieve Chan and colleagues’ goal: a
meaningful understanding of ecosystem services valuation that can better inform
research and policy.
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Figure 1. The values people place on certain ecosystem components are interdependent
with values they have for other components. Valuation in Cree goose hunting
involves social-social relationships (SS, e.g., intergenerational use),
social-ecological relationships (SE, e.g., hunters valuing birds and certain
marshes), and ecological-ecological relationships (EE, e.g., spatial-temporal
interactions between geese and marshes). These relationships define a network
of interdependent social and ecological units (red and green circles,
respectively). Figure adapted from Bodin and Tengö (6).
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Acknowledgments: I’d like to thank the CHANS lab for hosting my commentary
and Kai Chan for editorial comments and advice.
Jesse Sayles is a
postdoctoral fellow at the Climate
Change Adaptation Research Group at McGill University. He does human-environment
and sustainability research in costal and watershed systems. He is friends and
colleagues with several CHANS lab members.
References:
1. Chan KM et
al. (2016) Why protect nature? Rethinking values and the environment. Proc
Natl Acad Sci U S A 113:1462–1465.
2. Sayles JS, Mulrennan ME (2010) Securing
a Future: Cree Hunters’ Resistance and Flexibility to Environmental Changes,
Wemindji, James Bay. Ecol Soc 15:22.
3. Pendea IF, Costopoulos A, Nielsen C,
Chmura GL (2010) A new shoreline displacement model for the last 7 ka from
eastern James Bay, Canada. Quat Res 73:474–484.
4. Sayles JS (2015) No wilderness to
plunder: Process thinking reveals Cree land-use via the goose-scape. Can
Geogr / Le Géographe Can 59:297–303.
5. Peloquin C, Berkes F (2009) Local
knowledge, subsistence harvests, and social-ecological complexity in James Bay.
Hum Ecol 37:533–545.
6. Bodin Ö, Tengö M (2012) Disentangling
intangible social–ecological systems. Glob Environ Chang 22:430–439.
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| Photo: Canada Geese flying in Wemindji. Source: Cree Nation of Wemindji online gallery. http://www.wemindji.ca/gallery/local_photographers/pics16.jpg |
[1] While the coast is likely always to be important, a new set of
ecosystem relationships may also be emerging. Hunters increasingly travel
inland and hunt at roadside gravel pits due to a combination of social and
ecological changes that affect where geese go and the amount of time people
have for hunting (5). Thus, for some hunters, these roadside areas may take on a
different value in the future than they have had in the past.
nice
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