Significance Criteria for Cultural Ecosystem Services

Abstract

One of the biggest challenges to integrating Cultural Ecosystem Services into planning and policy is how to weigh them against other values and each other. Fundamentally we need to know which are the most important CES. I present a proposed set of criteria to help managers describe the importance of CES. The criteria were developed at a workshop on CES in Marine Spatial Planning with researchers and practitioners. By focusing on spatial areas of importance, who they are important to, and what is needed to sustain them, the criteria allow values, preferences and principles around CES to remain bundled. Further empirical work will be needed to understand how to improve the criteria and how they change the way CES data is collected versus approaches that use categories of values or services