Framing the change and changing frames:Tensions in participative strategy development

Participative strategy development serves to integrate the interests and perspectives of multiple stakeholders involved in today's complex environmental challenges, aiming at a better-informed strategy for tackling these challenges, increased stakeholder ownership, and more democratic decision making. Prior research has observed inherent tensions between the need for participative strategy to be open to stakeholders' input and the need for closure and guidance. We extend this reasoning using a framing perspective. Our evidence from the development of the England Peat Action Plan suggests that tensions can emerge between the necessary ambiguous initial framing of intended change and the persistence of stakeholders' different framings of this change as well as perceptions of lacking knowledge, guidance, and control. We argue that strategy openness can thereby impede stakeholders' willingness and ability to change and counteract the strategy's aim for major transformation. Interactive spaces help mitigate the tensions and facilitate stakeholders' willingness and ability for change. </p

IPBES : Don't throw out the baby whilst keeping the bathwater : Put people's values central, not nature's contributions

IPBES has replaced the term ‘ecosystem services’ with ‘nature's contributions to people’. This make-over does little to address the semantic problems associated with ecosystem services. The ‘new’ term still characterises the relation between nature and people as one-way and the value of nature as instrumental (as a provider of benefits), masking human agency and broader values. By replacing ecosystem services with a near-synonymous term, IPBES ditches the baby (the successful term ecosystem services), whilst keeping the dirty bathwater (the problems with the term). This distracts from the otherwise much-improved comprehensiveness of its valuation framework in terms of pluralism. To be genuinely inclusive, IPBES should use an altogether different headline terminology that centres around people's values and makes objects of value such as ecosystem services subsidiary. This allows diverse conceptions of human-nature relating and plural values of nature to genuinely stand on a par, whilst not ditching the baby. In the end, we can only integrate values in environmental governance, not services or contributions — ultimately it is the societal importance ascribed to nature that matters

Looking below the surface : The cultural ecosystem service values of UK marine protected areas (MPAs)

Acknowledgements This research was funded by the UK Natural Environment, Economic and Social, and Arts and Humanities Research Councils, the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Welsh Government as part of the Shared, Plural and Cultural Values work package of the UK National Ecosystem Assessment follow-on-phase (www.lwec.org.uk/sharedvalues). Additional funding was provided by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation through the Marine Conservation Society. Many thanks to Althea Davies (University of Aberdeen, currently University of St. Andrews), Ros Bryce (University of Aberdeen, currently University of the Highlands and Islands), Mike Christie (Aberystwyth University), Mandy Ryan (University of Aberdeen), Susan Ranger, Jean-Luc Solandt and Calum Duncan (Marine Conservation Society), Sophie Rolls and Rebecca Clark (Natural England), Mansi Konar (Defra) and Kerry Turner (University of East Anglia) for advising on the research design, and Alison Dando (British Sub-Aqua Club) and David Mitchell (Angling Trust) for their indispensable help with mobilising respondents. We are also grateful to the participants of our online survey and focus groups for their time and effort.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Looking below the surface : The cultural ecosystem service values of UK marine protected areas (MPAs)

Acknowledgements This research was funded by the UK Natural Environment, Economic and Social, and Arts and Humanities Research Councils, the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Welsh Government as part of the Shared, Plural and Cultural Values work package of the UK National Ecosystem Assessment follow-on-phase (www.lwec.org.uk/sharedvalues). Additional funding was provided by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation through the Marine Conservation Society. Many thanks to Althea Davies (University of Aberdeen, currently University of St. Andrews), Ros Bryce (University of Aberdeen, currently University of the Highlands and Islands), Mike Christie (Aberystwyth University), Mandy Ryan (University of Aberdeen), Susan Ranger, Jean-Luc Solandt and Calum Duncan (Marine Conservation Society), Sophie Rolls and Rebecca Clark (Natural England), Mansi Konar (Defra) and Kerry Turner (University of East Anglia) for advising on the research design, and Alison Dando (British Sub-Aqua Club) and David Mitchell (Angling Trust) for their indispensable help with mobilising respondents. We are also grateful to the participants of our online survey and focus groups for their time and effort.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Efficacy of different strategies using an ALS-inhibitor herbicide for weed control in sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.)

In den Jahren 2013 und 2014 wurden in sechs Umwelten in Deutschland Feldversuche durchgeführt, um die Wirksamkeit eines neuen ALS-Inhibitor Herbizids (F/T) zur Unkrautkontrolle im Zuckerrübenanbau zu bewerten. Fünf Herbizidstrategien mit verschiedenen Anwendungen von F/T (50 g Foramsulfuron ha–1 + 30 g Thiencarbazone-methyl ha–1) und eine klassische Herbizidstrategie mit drei Applikationen von Phenmedipham (75 g Wirkstoff ha–1), Desmedipham (59 g Wirkstoff ha–1), Ethofumesat (94 g Wirkstoff ha–1), Lenacil (34 g Wirkstoff ha–1) und Metamitron (700 g Wirkstoff ha–1) wurden miteinander verglichen. Die Wirksamkeit der klassischen Herbizidstrategie lag zwischen 84 und 99% durch nicht voll­ständig kontrollierte Chenopodium album L., Matricaria recutita L., Mercurialis annua L. und Solanum tuberosum L. Die durchschnittliche Wirksamkeit von F/T lag bei 95% in der einmaligen Applikation. Strategien mit zwei Applikationen in Kombination von klassischen Herbiziden und F/T erreichten eine Wirksamkeit über 97%. Dies führt zu einer höheren Flexibilität der Unkrautkontrolle in Zuckerrüben.In 2013 and 2014, field trials were conducted at six environments in Germany to evaluate the efficacy of a new ALS-inhibiting herbicide containing foramsulfuron and thiencarbazone-methyl (F/T) for weed control in sugar beet cultivation. Five herbicide strategies with different application frequencies of F/T (50 g foramsulfuron ha–1 + 30 g thiencarbazone-methyl ha–1) and a classic herbicide strategy with three applications of phenmedipham (75 g ai ha–1), desmedipham (59 g ai ha–1), ethofumesate (94 g ai ha–1), lenacil (34 g ai ha–1) and metamitron (700 g ai ha–1) were compared. The efficacy of the classic herbicide strategy was between 84 and 99% due to surviving Chenopodium album L., Matricaria recutita L., Mercurialis annua L. and Solanum tuberosum L. Average efficacy of F/T was 95% in the single application treatment. Strategies with two applications combining classic herbicides and F/T achieved an efficacy beyond 97%. This points to an increased flexibility of weed control in sugar beet

The Deliberative Value Formation model

It is increasingly argued that preferences and values for complex goods such as ecosystem services are not pre-formed but need to be generated through a process of deliberation and learning. While the number of studies incorporating deliberation in monetary and non-monetary valuation of ecosystem services is increasing, there is a limited theoretical basis to how values are influenced and shaped in social valuation processes. In this paper we present the Deliberative Value Formation (DVF) model, a new theoretical model for deliberative valuation informed by social-psychological theory. Anchored within a broader theoretical framework around shared and plural values, the DVF model identifies a range of potential positive (e.g. learning) and negative (e.g. social desirability bias) outcomes of deliberation and key factors that influence outcomes (e.g. ability to deliberate, institutional factors, power dynamics). It also conceptualises how values may be formed by ‘translating’ transcendental values, our principles and life goals, into more specific contextual values. Underpinned by this theoretical model, we present a six-step template for designing deliberative valuation processes. The DVF provides a theoretical and methodological framework for more rigorous monetary and non-monetary deliberative valuation, and enables more effective integration of social learning and plural knowledges and values in valuation and decision-making

Twenty Thousand Sterling Under the Sea: Estimating the value of protecting deep-sea biodiversity

The deep-sea includes over 90% of the world oceans and is thought to be one of the most diverse ecosystems in the World. It supplies society with valuable ecosystem services, including the provision of food, the regeneration of nutrients and the sequestration of carbon. Technological advancements in the second half of the 20th century made large-scale exploitation of mineral-, hydrocarbon- and fish resources possible. These economic activities, combined with climate change impacts, constitute a considerable threat to deep-sea biodiversity. Many governments, including that of the UK, have therefore decided to implement additional protected areas in their waters of national jurisdiction. To support the decision process and to improve our understanding for the acceptance of marine conservation plans across the general public, a choice experiment survey asked Scottish households for their willingness-to-pay for additional marine protected areas in the Scottish deep-sea. This study is one of the first to use valuation methodologies to investigate public preferences for the protection of deep-sea ecosystems. The experiment focused on the elicitation of economic values for two aspects of biodiversity: (i) the existence value for deep-sea species and (ii) the option-use value of deep-sea organisms as a source for future medicinal products

The interplay between economics, legislative power and social influence examined through a social-ecological framework for marine ecosystems services

In the last 15 years, conservation has shifted increasingly towards perspectives based on the instrumental value of nature, where what counts is what provides benefits to humans. The ecosystem services framework embraces this vision of nature through monetary valuation of the environment to correct market failures and government distortions that hinder efficient allocation of public goods, including goods and services provided by biodiversity and ecosystems. The popularity of this approach is reflected in different countries legislation; for instance, US, EU and UK have introduced economic criteria for comparing costs and benefits of environmental policies in protecting ecosystem services. From an operational perspective, the ecosystem services framework requires ecologists to estimate how the supply of services is affected by changes in the functionality and/or the extent of ecosystems; and economists to identify how changes in the supply affect the flow of direct and indirect benefits to people. However, this approach may be simplistic when faced with the complexity of social-ecological systems. We investigated this for three different marine services: assimilative capacity of waste, coastal defense and renewable energy. We find that economic valuation could provide efficient and fair allocations in the case of assimilative capacity, but leads to social clashes between outputs generated by cost benefit analysis and citizens’ expectation in the case of coastal defense. In the case of renewable energy, controversies can be generated by regulatory mechanisms that are not necessarily aligned with the interests of industry or important social groups. We conclude that there is a need to integrate perspectives arising from utilitarian allocation of resources with those involving legislation and communal values in order to reconcile conflicting interests and better sustain marine social-ecological systems