Intrinsic, instrumental and relational values behind nature’s contributions to people preferences of nature visitors in Germany

ABSTRACT

Protected areas not only provide biodiversity conservation but also offer a multitude of nature’s contributions to people (NCP), such as recreational opportunities. Visitors to these areas value nature and NCP for various reasons, potentially leading to different arguments for conservation planning. So far, research has neglected the heterogeneity of reasons why visitors value nature and NCP in natural areas. In this study, we identified NCP preferences and elicited diverse values underpinning those preferences, i.e. intrinsic, instrumental and relational values. We analysed 127 semi-structured interviews with nature visitors of three regions encompassing protected areas across Germany including Schorfheide-Chorin (North East), Hainich-Dün (Central), and Schwäbische Alb (South West). We found that relational values resonated more broadly than intrinsic and instrumental values. We also found a connection between NCP preferences and the values underpinning them: regulating NCP were mostly associated with care and stewardship, instrumental values and social responsibility. In contrast, non-material NCP were mostly associated with therapeutic values and aesthetic values. Moreover, we found that socio-demographic factors – i.e. age, gender, income, education – and sustainable consumption patterns influenced the expression of different values. For instance, intrinsic values resonated more broadly for women than for men. We showed geographic differences in NCP preferences and their corresponding values across the regions. The results show that NCP values and preferences can be diverse within stakeholder groups and that research approaches need to be chosen carefully to be able to reveal this diversity. We conclude that value pluralism is fundamental to understanding underlying mechanisms in NCP research.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

EDITED BY:

• Amrita Neelakantan

KEYWORDS:

• Ecosystem services
• IPBES
• plural valuation
• social actors
• nature tourists
• relational paradigms

Introduction

Protected areas are recognised for conserving biodiversity and landscapes (Chape et al. 2005; Benetti and Langemeyer 2021). Besides providing habitat for endangered wildlife and preserving iconic landscape elements (Watson et al. 2014), protected areas contribute to people’s quality of life through the provision of opportunities for spirituality, science, education, and recreation (Badman and Bomhard 2008; Dudley 2008). For instance, and among other aims, national parks are designated ‘to provide a foundation for spiritual, scientific, educational, recreational and visitor opportunities, all of which must be environmentally and culturally compatible’ (IUCN, 1994). Thereby, protected areas contribute to people’s quality of life in multiple ways by providing nature’s contributions to people (NCP) (Pedraza et al. 2020; Garcia Rodrigues et al. 2022; Daněk et al. 2023). NCP are all benefits that people receive from nature. The NCP concept emphasizes people’s dependency on ecosystems to achieve a good quality of life and categorises nature’s benefits into three overlapping groups: material, non-material, and regulating NCP (Díaz et al. 2018). Material NCP, such as food, energy, and medicine, directly support people’s physical survival and material assets. Non-material NCP, such as opportunities for recreation and inspiration, intangibly affect people’s quality of life through subjective and psychological aspects. Mainly when protected areas are accessible to people, they provide several non-material NCP, such as recreational activities, aesthetic enjoyment, relaxation, and a sense of place (Martín-López et al. 2012; Ament et al. 2017; Clements and Cumming 2017). Regulating NCP are those aspects of living organisms and ecosystems that mediate both the environmental conditions experienced by people and the provision of material and non-material NCP, including, for example, pollination or soil formation (Díaz et al. 2018). Therefore, management of ecosystems involves not only conserving biodiversity and landscapes but also relevant NCP contributing to people’s quality of life in other ways.

Management of protected natural areas is influenced by the multiple ways people value ecosystems (Díaz et al. 2015; Arias-Arévalo et al. 2018). Here, value is understood as the ‘importance, worth or usefulness’ of nature and NCP (Díaz et al. 2015; Pascual et al. 2017). Decisions about the management of protected areas rely not only on conservation agencies and land managers but also on the preferences and values of visitors who demand nature-based experiences (Gross et al. 2023) and other benefits contributing to their quality of life. Nature-based tourism has become one of the pivotal arguments to economically justify the existence of protected areas (Buckley 2009; Balmford et al. 2015). Although research on visitors’ values of nature is very prolific and examples of non-monetary valuation exist (Crouzat et al. 2022), it has been biased by monetary valuation that led to emphasize the instrumental value of nature and overlook the multiple ways by which visitors value nature and NCP (Hansjürgens et al. 2016; Gross et al. 2023). Hence, a more pluralistic approach is required to consider the multitude of values associated with protected areas.

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) acknowledged the need to integrate multiple values of nature and NCP by advocating for a value pluralism approach that recognises and bridges three value domains: instrumental, intrinsic, and relational values (Pascual et al. 2023). Instrumental values refer to the importance of nature and NCP as a means to achieve a specific end, such as providing economic benefits (Arias-Arevalo et al. 2017; Arias-Arévalo et al. 2018). Intrinsic values refer to the importance of nature by itself, independent of any human experience (Pascual et al. 2017) and irrespective of their utility to humans (Arias-Arevalo et al. 2017). Relational values refer to the importance of all meaningful relations between people and nature and among people mediated by nature (Chan et al. 2016, 2018; Himes and Muraca 2018). Although values are distinguished between these three domains, the boundaries are less rigid, and the value types are not exclusive (Hill et al. 2021; Kreitzman et al. 2022). For example, when people visit a forest to gather edible plants for food or to sell in local markets, the value of picking wild edible plants is instrumental. Frequently going to the forest to harvest these plants may, however, slowly lead to the creation of a meaningful relationship with the forest, such as having a place of identity (i.e. relational value) or feeling the moral duty of protecting this specific forest (i.e. relational value). Lastly, this also offers the opportunity to develop intrinsic values (i.e. valuing the forest’s existence irrespective of the edible plants provided) (Martín-López 2021). Although empirical literature on value pluralism has been picking up (Arias-Arevalo et al. 2017; Klain et al. 2017; Schmitt et al. 2022), scholars have primarily explored value pluralism conceptually (Chan et al. 2016; Borrie and Armatas 2022). The notion of relational values has been extensively discussed by scholars (Grubert 2018; Stenseke 2018; West et al. 2018; Stålhammar and Thorén 2019). Providing empirical evidence on value pluralism (Riechers et al. 2021, 2022; Chapman and Deplazes-Zemp 2023) remains at the forefront of NCP research (Christie et al. 2019; Kadykalo et al. 2019; Managi et al. 2022).

In general, people value nature in multiple and context-specific ways. Individual life experiences, human-nature interactions, and socio-demographic backgrounds lead to diverse perspectives on nature and heterogeneity within stakeholder groups regarding the importance of different NCP (Tauro et al. 2018). Gaining insights into peoples’ diverse needs for nature protection by studying the values behind NCP preferences can thus contribute to a consensual conservation planning aligned with people’s values (Arias-Arévalo et al. 2017; Jones et al. 2016). Yet, research to elicit plural values of NCP within stakeholder groups remains scarce (see Tauro et al. 2018). This elusiveness is even more remarkable for nature visitors (Gross et al. 2023) whose visits to nature intend to fulfil non-material needs (Zorondo-Rodríguez et al. 2023). If nature conservation planning wants to address the diverse needs of nature visitors, understanding their NCP preferences and the values underlying them is essential.

In this paper, we follow the IPBES approach by linking the NCP concept (Díaz et al. 2015, 2018) with a plural valuation framework (Pascual et al. 2017, 2023) to unravel NCP preferences and values that visitors of protected areas express. In doing so, we link NCP and values with their underlying social-demographic factors. More specifically, we aim to:

1. Assess preferences and values of NCP expressed by nature visitors across three regions in Germany.

2. Identify associations between NCP preferences and values.

3. Understand how these NCP preferences and values differ according to geographical and socio-demographic factors and consumption patterns of nature visitors.

Study design

Case-study regions

This study is embedded in the large-scale and long-term research platform Biodiversity Exploratories, which is located in three rural regions of Germany: (a) Schorfheide-Chorin (North Eastern Germany), (b) Hainich-Dün (Central Germany) and (c) Schwäbische Alb (South Western Germany) (Figure 1; Fischer et al. 2010). While the Biodiversity Exploratories’ focus is to investigate the relationships between land use, biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, the project has broadened its scope to research on social-ecological systems and NCP or ecosystem services more recently (Neyret et al. 2021; Peter et al. 2022; Le Provost et al. 2023). Multiple actors in the three different regions shape the provision of NCP according to their priorities. Tourism is one of them, besides forestry, agriculture, and nature protection (Peter et al. 2022; Neyret et al. 2023). The three regions differ in their characteristics and comprise multiple protected areas each.

Figure 1. Map of Germany showing the three case-study regions of the Biodiversity Exploratories in which semi-structured interviews were conducted: Schorfheide-Chorin (North East), Hainich-Dün (Centre), Schwäbische Alb (South West). Source: own figure based on BExIS (2022) and Esri (2018) data.

The UNESCO¹ Biosphere Reserve Schorfheide-Chorin is located in Northeastern Germany and is one of the largest protected areas in Germany, comprising 129,161 ha. Approximately 35.000 people live within the reserve (Biosphärenreservat Schorfheide-Chorin n.d.). The extensive forest-lake and agriculturally heterogeneously shaped cultural landscape offers quiet, landscape-based recreation opportunities. The region is also characterised by its proximity to Berlin (65–90 km), the excellent accessibility by road and public transport, and a wide range of tourist destinations and focal points such as the UNESCO World Heritage² listed forest Forst Grumsin. The biosphere reserve is mainly a weekend destination for people living in Berlin and groups of families, and it attracts bikers due to its supranational biking network. In addition, the area is also a destination for cultural and educational trips to, for example, the Chorin Monastery, concerts, or organic farms.

The Hainich-Dün is located in Central Germany and comprises 130.000 hectares. The area is home to approximately 150.800 people. The landscape has an agricultural character with cropland and sheep grazing. The region is mainly known for its dense old beech forest, Hainich, which is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage³ site and includes the Hainich National Park. It is Germany’s largest connected deciduous forest comprising 16.000 ha (Biodiversity Exploratories n.d.). The Hainich National Park attracts many visitors who seek diverse nature experiences. It is accessible via numerous, well-signposted trails for hikers and cyclists and provides unique tourist attractions such as a treetop trail and a wildcat centre (Unstrut-Hainich-Kreis n.d.).

The UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Schwäbische Alb is located in Southwest Germany. It was established in 2008 and comprises 85.000 ha. Approximately 150.000 people live within the reserve. The natural and cultural landscape of the area is characterised by orchards, grazed juniper meadows, and beech forests. 97% of the area is used for economic purposes in an environmentally compatible way. The remaining 3% are protected as the Biosphere Reserve’s core zone. The landscape is rich in well-preserved castles, ruins, and caves, partly UNESCO protected, which are open to visitors and thereby provides numerous opportunities for tourists (Biosphärengebiet Schwäbische Alb n.d.).

Survey design

We collected data on NCP preferences and values using a semi-structured interview guide conducted by the first and third authors. The interview was organised in four sections (Isaac et al. 2022, see Supplementary Material). The first section comprised a ranking exercise where the respondent could choose the five most important NCP for their personal well-being among a list of 11 NCP (Table 1). The 11 selected NCP had been identified as relevant in former research in all three case-study regions (Le Provost et al. 2021; Peter et al. 2022). To facilitate the understanding by respondents, the list of NCP was accompanied by icons providing a visual representation of each NCP (Iniesta-Arandia et al. 2014), but we did not use the term NCP during the interview nor indicate the NCP categories shown in Table 1. Additionally, we reshuffled the order of the NCP cards after each interview, so they were always in a different (randomised) order. Next, the respondent ranked the five selected NCP based on importance for their personal well-being. The second section contained follow-up questions that intended to unravel the values underpinning the selection of the NCP in the ranking exercise (e.g. Why is carbon storage most important to you?). The third section addressed the respondents’ environmental behaviour (e.g. if the respondent usually consumes organic and/or Fairtrade products). The final section of the questionnaire contained questions on the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents (i.e. place of residence, formal education, age, gender, and monthly income). The survey was conducted using tablets with the Esri ArcGIS Survey123 Software (version 3.12.277). Supplementary Table S1 shows relevant questions used for the interview. The survey was approved by the Ethics Committee of Leuphana University of Lüneburg (Germany) prior to data collection.

Table 1. List of NCP and icons used for the ranking exercise as part of the structured interviews. The last two columns indicate the number of times (n) and percentage (%) each NCP was selected as the highest-ranked NCP from a total of 127 respondents across three case-study regions.

NCP Category	NCP	Icon used in ranking exercise	n (respondents)	% (respondents)
Material	Timber		1	<1%
	Plant-based feed/fodder		2	2%
Regulating	Pollination		18	14%
	Local temperature regulation		5	4%
	Carbon storage		37	29%
	Natural pest resistance		4	3%
Non-Material	Recreation (hiking, biking, swimming, etc.)		32	25%
	Landscape’s Beauty		20	16%
	Wildlife observation		4	3%
	Enjoying beautiful plants		3	2%
Non-Material/Material	Picking wild edible plants		1	<1%

Data collection

We conducted a total of 134 face-to-face interviews, of which we used 127 interviews for this study. The interviews took place between May 2021 and November 2021 in the three case-study regions and were recorded with the respondents’ consent. We selected the respondents randomly, and only individuals over the age of 18 were interviewed. We covered various sampling sites, including parking lots close to hiking paths and/or natural attractions, near tourist information centres, and on official hiking paths. To assess the suitability of the interview design, we pre-tested the interview outside of the case study sites (n = 10) and adapted it accordingly.

Seven interviews had to be excluded from the analysis because they contained incomplete, missing, or non-understandable audio files, hence no information on values. This left us with a sample of 127 responses to be analyzed, of which 55 (43%) were conducted in the Schwäbische Alb, 35 (28%) in Hainich-Dün and 37 (29%) in the Schorfheide-Chorin region.

Content analysis

To unravel the values underpinning the selection of NCP, we focused on the responses regarding the highest-ranked NCP. To do so, we conducted a qualitative content analysis (Mayring and Fenzl 2019) of the transcript sections in which the respondents explained why they had selected the highest-ranked NCP. The coding was conducted according to definitions of intrinsic, instrumental, and relational values in Table 2. We further coded relational values following an iterative deductive and inductive coding process. We departed from a list of relational values provided by former reviews on empirical values research (Riechers et al. 2022; Pratson et al. 2023) and added or removed categories of values from this list according to the values identified in the verbatims. The final list of relational values distinguished between therapeutic values, aesthetic values, care and stewardship, social responsibility, identity, and social relations. Table 2 provides the list of values, their definitions, and exemplary verbatims from the interviews.

Table 2. Value domains, types, definitions and verbatim examples as expressed by nature visitors for top-ranked NCP. Column ‘n’ indicates the number of times a particular value type was identified across all responses (122 value statements), while the percentage indicates the proportion of statements mentioning that value.

Value Domain	Value Type	Definition	n	%	Example verbatim
Instrumental		The importance of nature and NCP as a means to achieve utility including monetary benefits or the relevance to an economic activity (Arias-Arevalo et al. 2017; Pascual et al. 2017; Arias-Arévalo et al. 2018).	11	9%	‘These are oaks, these are practically good woods, where furniture could also be made from them and everything’. (HAIJK27)
Intrinsic		The importance of nature and NCP independent of any human experience and irrespective of their utility to humans (Arias-Arevalo et al. 2017; Pascual et al. 2017).	21	17%	‘So that nature is alive!’ (HAIRI16)
Relational		The importance of all meaningful relations and responsibilities among humans in nature and between humans and nature (Arias-Arevalo et al. 2017; Schmitt et al. 2022).	90	74%	See subcategories below
	Therapeutic	The importance of nature and its NCP for mental, social and physical well-being (Hartig et al. 2011; Shanahan et al. 2016).	36	30%	‘It pleases me, it relaxes me. Yes, what else do I need to say? Colors, joy, smells’. (SCHRI31)
	Aesthetic	The appreciation of the beauty of nature or its properties (Jones et al. 2016; Tribot et al. 2018).	19	16%	‘If you usually only look at concrete buildings in Berlin, then you’re just happy to see something natural’. (SCHRI32)
	Care and Stewardship	The desire or feeling of accountability to take care of nature and its NCP (Britto dos Santos and Gould 2018; West et al. 2018; Hill et al. 2021).	13	11%	‘I think that climate change is the topic of our time and it is important that our natural areas are protected and preserved’. (ALBRI73)
	Social Responsibility	The feeling of accountability for what happens with nature and its NCP for the sake of other humans (Britto dos Santos and Gould 2018).	11	9%	‘For our descendants as well as for ourselves, simply for future and sustainability’. (ALBRI64)
	Identity	The perception of being linked with nature and its NCP through one’s personal or social identity (Britto dos Santos and Gould 2018, 2018; Kreitzman et al. 2022).	9	7%	‘Because we are nature people’. (HAIJK26)
	Social Relations	The importance of nature and NCP in maintaining or creating social bonds between humans (Britto dos Santos and Gould 2018).	2	2%	‘Recreation, fun and actually doing something together with people’. (SCHRI34)

To conduct a quantitative analysis, we employed a binary coding whereby we coded 1 for values mentioned and 0 for values not mentioned. The last author cross-checked the categorisation to enhance objectivity in coding decisions. In case of disagreement, specific verbatims were discussed. In the cases where a verbatim did not discretely refer only to one value type (i.e. there were different types of values in one verbatim), we assigned it to all the categories that apply, meaning that the number of values identified is larger than the number of verbatims. Out of the 127 valid responses, 30 did not have identifiable values, resulting in 97 responses coded for values. In total, we identified 122 different value statements, meaning that some responses contained more than one value type.

Statistical analysis

All statistical analyses were conducted for NCP variables with a representative number of observations -i.e. that were selected by more than 10% of the respondents, as that should be representative for most nature visitors. The highest-ranked NCP included carbon storage, pollination, landscape beauty, and recreation (Table 1). For the most frequently expressed values, we considered those representing more than 9% of the respondents to avoid excluding the category of instrumental values. Hence, the final set of values analyzed includes instrumental value, intrinsic value, and the relational values of care and stewardship, aesthetic value, social responsibility, and therapeutic value (Table 2). The socio-demographic information of the respondents was obtained as quantitative data. All information was coded as binary or converted into ordinal variables when applicable. Missing values for age (below 1% of respondents), education (2%) and income level (17%) were replaced with the median. Age was elicited in years and was log-transformed to avoid heteroscedasticity. For more information on the socio-demographic variables, see Table 3.

Table 3. Sample characteristics of respondents by study region and in total (SD: Standard Deviation).

Variable	Definition	Schwäbische Alb n = 55	Hainich-Dün n = 35	Schorfheide- Chorin n = 37	Total sample n = 127
Age	Median (SD) Mean in years	44 (15) 44	57 (18) 52	51 (17) 51	51 (17) 48
Gender	Female = 1; Male = 0	36 (65%)	17 (49%)	27 (72%)	79 (62%)
Local	Local = 1; Non-Local = 0	16 (29%)	26 (74%)	11 (30%)	53 (42%)
Education level	Median (SD) Mean, from 1 to 10, with higher values indicating higher formal education	8 (2) 7	9 (2) 8	9 (2) 8	9 (2) 8
Income level	Median (SD) Mean, from 1 to 5, with higher values indicating a higher income group	3 (1) 3	3 (1) 3	3 (1) 3	3 (1) 3
Sustainable consumption level	Median (SD) Mean, from 1 to 4 with higher values indicating more frequent consumption of organic or Fairtrade products	3 (1) 3	3 (1) 3	3 (1) 3	3 (1) 3

First, we tested for sample independence for a set of explanatory variables including gender, interview region (Schorfheide-Chorin, Hainich-Dün, Schwäbsiche Alb), and whether the nature visitor comes from the region, using the epitools R package (Aragon 2020). We calculated odds ratios to be more accurate for highly discrete data compared to the Chi-squared or Fisher’s exact test (Agresti 2001). This allowed us to determine whether there is a significant relationship between gender or interview region and NCP preferences or values. Significant values smaller than one indicate the outcome is more likely for the baseline compared to the other site, while significant values larger than one indicate the outcome is more likely for the other site compared to the baseline.

Second, we used redundancy analysis (RDA), i.e. a multivariate multiple linear regression, to identify socio-demographic factors associated with NCP preferences and values using the vegan package (Oksanen et al. 2022). NCP and values were considered the response variables, while socio-demographics (i.e. age, gender, education and income levels), sustainable consumption level, self-consideration as a ‘local’ visitor and the interview region were used as explanatory variables. The categorical variable ‘gender’ was transformed into a dummy binary variable (1 = male, 2 = female), as none of the respondents selected the option ‘diverse’. The binary variable ‘local’ was also transformed into a dummy variable (1 = yes, 0 = no). The categorical variable ‘site’ was coded as (1 = ALB, 2 = HAI, 3 = SCH). A Monte Carlo permutation test (500 permutations) was performed to determine the significance of the model. All data analyses were performed in R software version 4.3.2 (R Core Team 2021).

Results

Sample characteristics

The socio-demographic characteristics of respondents were very similar across the three study regions. The mean age of the sample respondents was 48 years, and almost half of them lived in the respective case-study region (42%). We sampled more female (62%) than male respondents (38%). Most respondents hold a university or applied science degree at the master’s level or equivalent (median of education level of 9) and had an average income level (monthly net household income between 2000–4000 Euros). Furthermore, our respondents frequently consumed organic and/or Fairtrade certified products. More details about the characteristics of the sampled population are provided in Table 3.

Differences in NCP ranking

Four NCP were ranked highest by more than 10% of the respondents. Overall, respondents prioritised regulating NCP (50%) and non-material NCP (47%) over material NCP (2%) of the respective protected area (Table 1). The highest ranked NCP were carbon storage (29%) and recreation (25%). For two NCP, we found statistically significant differences in the prioritised NCP by respondents from the three different regions. In the region Schwäbische Alb, respondents were more likely to choose pollination as the most important NCP than in the regions Hainich-Dün and Schorfheide-Chorin (p < 0.01) (Table 4). They were, however, less likely to choose landscape beauty as the most important NCP when compared to respondents in the Hainich-Dün and Schorfheide-Chorin region (p < 0.05). Differences between respondents from the Hainich-Dün and the Schorfheide-Chorin regions were not significantly different (Supplementary Table S2). In addition, we did not find gender differences in the top-ranked NCP nor differences between local and non-local respondents (Supplementary Table S3).

Table 4. Number of respondents ranking carbon storage, pollination, landscape beauty, and recreation as most important and odds ratio statistics regarding these NCP, which were ranked as most important by more than 10% of the respondents, for the regions Hainich-Dün (Hai) and Schorfheide-Chorin (Sch) with the Schwäbische Alb (Alb) as baseline (see Supplementary Table 2 for the results using Hai as baseline).

NCP Domain	NCP	Alb	Hai	Odds Ratio	p-Value	Sch	Odds Ratio	p-Value
Regulating	Carbon Storage	14	14	1.94	0.17	9	0.95	1
	Pollination	15	2	0.17	0.01	1	0.09	<0.001
Non-material	Landscape Beauty	3	8	4.9	0.02	9	5.3	0.01
	Recreation	18	8	0.62	0.33	6	0.41	0.09

Differences in value expressions

We found statistically significant differences in the value domains mentioned by respondents in relation to their highest-ranked NCP. In the region Schwäbische Alb, respondents were more likely to reason their NCP choice with care and stewardship when compared to respondents in the Schorfheide-Chorin region (p < 0.05) (Table 5), while no significant differences were found between respondents from the Hainich-Dün and the Schorfheide-Chorin regions (Supplementary Table S5). In addition, we also found gender differences: female respondents were four times (p < 0.01) more likely to justify their decision on the highest ranked NCP with intrinsic values than male respondents, while for instrumental and relational values, gender differences were non-significant (Supplementary Table S4). We also did not find significant differences in values between local and non-local respondents (Supplementary Table S4).

Table 5. Number of statements referring to relational, instrumental, and intrinsic values and odds ratio statistics for Hainich-Dün (Hai) and Schorfheide-Chorin (Sch) by value with Schwäbische Alb (Alb) as baseline (see Supplementary Table 5 for the results using Hai as baseline).

Value Domain	Value Type	Alb	Hai	Odds Ratio	p-Value	Sch	Odds Ratio	p-Value
Relational	Care and Stewardship	10	2	0.29	0.12	1	0.14	0.05
	Aesthetic	4	7	3.1	0.1	8	3.41	0.06
	Social Responsibility	3	5	2.8	0.25	4	2.06	0.43
	Therapeutic	15	12	1.39	0.49	9	0.86	0.81
Instrumental		6	2	0.52	0.48	3	0.74	0.74
Intrinsic		9	6	1.06	1	6	1	1

Expression of values assigned to NCP

Respondents referred to a plurality of values when they reflected on the importance of their highest ranked NCP in the respective case-study area (Figure 2). Respondents frequently expressed relational values (59% of respondents), followed by intrinsic values (17%) and instrumental values (9%). However, we could not identify a particular value underpinning their NCP choice in 24% of the interviews (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Share of values (Instrumental in gold, Intrinsic in blue and Relational in red scale, which encompasses Therapeutic, Aesthetic, Care and Stewardship, and Social Responsibility) expressed by respondents per NCP (on display only those NCP ranked as most important by more than 10% of respondents).

For relational values, the most frequently expressed value in the entire sample was therapeutic (28% of respondents), expressed mostly in relation to the NCP recreation and landscape beauty. Respondents referred to the importance of recreation for their physical and mental well-being, for balancing their life since they lived in the city or worked indoors, or for relaxation, as one respondent expressed it: ‘It is simply a relaxation and an oasis for the senses and for the body and mind’. (SCHRI43). Care and stewardship was a value mostly expressed when selecting the NCP pollination and carbon storage. Care and stewardship was, for example, described as ‘It is becoming more and more an issue, it has actually long been an issue with the whole climate. This is a matter that can be regulated locally or regionally, but is of course globally dependent, but if you start on a small scale, the first step, should have been taken long ago’. (ALBJK148). Social responsibility was expressed mostly in relation to carbon storage. The respondents mentioned the importance of halting climate change or the functioning of ecosystems for the good of society, humankind or future generations. This is, for example, expressed as ‘(…) You can see how nature and the climate are changing. And I am also glad that the Hainich exists here and that everything is left as it is. (…) Well, because I think it is important for the future and I have a little daughter, how it will develop further’. (HAIRI11.1). Aesthetic values were mainly expressed for the NCP landscape beauty and recreation, such as ‘Just looking at [the landscape] brings me down. Although, yesterday I was sitting in the car and then I just drive by and it looked like in a movie and then I thought “stupid, it’s most beautiful when I’m sitting in the car”. (SCHJK45).

Intrinsic values were mostly expressed for the selection of NCP pollination, carbon storage, and landscape beauty. Here, respondents valued nature regardless of their contribution to people. For instance, when a respondent comments on her highest ranked NCP: ‘I think that it is one of the most important things […] not to concrete over nature, but to make sure that nature is allowed to do the temperature regulation itself, so to speak. Usually it can do that, if man is not so close, it works quite well’. (SCHRI47).

Finally, instrumental values were expressed when pollination, plant-based feed, timber, and carbon storage were ranked as most important. Instrumental values were mainly described as the material or economic significance of NCP for humans. The respondents expressed the importance of NCP for food production, tourism and economic significance for the forestry or agricultural sector: ‘Yes, then no more flowers would be pollinated, no more trees would be pollinated, and no more crops would be pollinated. So it wouldn’t, you’d have to go around with a brush, that would be a job creation measure, and you’d all have to go around the meadow yourself and pollinate every little flower and in the orchards and in the field and so on. So those are our most valuable employees that we have’. (ALBRI52).

Factors influencing NCP preferences and values

The results of the RDA (Figure 3) showed associations between the highest ranked NCP and the values associated with those NCP on the one hand, and the socio-demographic characteristics and other covariates on the other hand. The model was statistically significant (Supplementary Table S6), and the most significant explanatory variables were site, education level, and gender (Supplementary Table S7). Interestingly, each of the four highest ranked NCP included in this analysis was displayed in a different RDA quadrant, revealing distinct associations with values and underlying explanatory variables.

Figure 3. Redundancy analysis (RDA) showing the relationships between nature visitors’ values (in orange), their highest ranked NCP (in blue) and variables related to their socio-demographic characteristics, sustainable consumption and interview region (in grey).

The first axis of the RDA (44% of the variance explained, Figure 3 and Supplementary Table S8) separated the covariate site, which was associated with the NCP landscape beauty and aesthetic values, from income level and gender, which were associated with the NCP recreation and therapeutic values. The NCP pollination and carbon storage were also represented in opposite extremes of axis 1. The second axis of the RDA (27% of the variance explained, Figure 3 and Supplementary Table S8) showed a divide between non-material and regulating NCP. Non-material NCP (landscape beauty and recreation) were primarily associated with education level (i.e. higher education) and therapeutic values, while regulating NCP (carbon storage and pollination) were associated with sustainable consumption and care and stewardship values.

Discussion

Our results based on semi-structured interviews with nature visitors in three case-study regions across Germany showed that nature visitors express a range of instrumental, intrinsic, and relational values for nature and NCP and that a plural valuation approach is able to take this multiplicity of values into account.

Diverse values of NCP within the stakeholder group of nature visitors

While much research on NCP compares perspectives between stakeholder groups (Bergeret and Lavorel 2022; Masao et al. 2022; Peter et al. 2022), studies on values within single stakeholder groups (e.g. Tauro et al. 2018) remain scarce. Although we acknowledge that individuals may perform multiple roles in their daily life (e.g. a person who goes for a walk in the forest can also be a farmer or a forest manager), in this study, we consider the respondents’ role when we encountered them; that is, visiting a natural area in their free time. Hence, our findings highlight the importance of zooming into the perspectives within one stakeholder group, namely nature visitors, to elicit the plurality of values ascribed to NCP. Indeed, our respondents expressed intrinsic, instrumental, and a range of relational values to the NCP provided by the three case-study regions. This implies that the views and perspectives of stakeholder groups should not be simplified to a single response per group, as arguably, not only nature visitors but within any stakeholder group, people experience and describe the importance of nature in different ways. In that line, it is argued that individual life experiences, human-nature interactions and socio-demographic backgrounds lead to diverse perspectives on nature (Tauro et al. 2018).

For instance, landscape beauty was most frequently expressed in the Schorfheide-Chorin region (Table 5). This region is quickly and easily accessible for people living in the German capital city of Berlin, which may attract people who escape the city to enjoy the beauty of a natural landscape. In our study, this was confirmed by respondents’ statements such as ‘If you usually only look at concrete buildings in Berlin, then you’re just happy to see something natural’. Thus, the absence of human-nature interaction in the daily life of respondents from an urban area might drive NCP preferences and values in the Schorfheide-Chorin sample and explain why respondents had stronger preferences for landscape beauty here. Rural-urban differences in nature values or environmental attitudes were assessed in other studies (Foster and McBeth 1996; Berenguer et al. 2005; Huddart-Kennedy et al. 2009) supporting that people from rural and urban areas perceive nature differently, although we did not find differences between local and non-local respondents in this study (Supplementary Table S3). In turn, we discovered that pollination was most frequently selected in the Schwäbische Alb (Table 4). Here, respondents also expressed care and stewardship values more frequently (Table 5). The Schwäbische Alb, characterised by small-scale agriculture and successful marketing of regional products through prominent labelling (‘made in Alb’), could attract this specific group of nature visitors that care about locally produced products.

In line with Schmitt et al. (2022) and Arias-Arevalo et al. (2017), we found significant associations between respondents with high education level and expression of intrinsic and relational values. However, in our sample, this association was only limited to the expression of therapeutic values, a type of relational value. Similar to our results, Schmitt et al. (2022) also found that female respondents were more likely to express intrinsic values. This result shows that gender plays a role in nature values and that women seem to express more care for the environment (Wojewódzka-Wiewiórska et al. 2022). In particular, the fact that our female respondents expressed intrinsic values is interesting because the interviewer asked about the importance of NCP for their personal well-being and, therefore, the question itself could lead to expressing instrumental and relational values instead of intrinsic values. Moreover, we found a connection between pollination and instrumental values (Figure 2). Similarly, Topp et al. (2021) found that when instrumental values were presented in the discourses of farmers in the Renosterveld (South Africa), it was more likely that they also expressed the importance of pollination. Likewise, Schmitt et al. (2022) found that pollination was particularly associated with instrumental values in the grasslands of Bavaria (Germany), alongside aesthetic and sense of place values.

While our study revealed that values were expressed from all three categories, relational values were more frequently elicited than intrinsic and instrumental values (Figure 2). The prominence of relational values has been found in other studies for farmers (Klain et al. 2017; Topp et al. 2021; Kreitzman et al. 2022; Chapman and Deplazes-Zemp 2023), citizens within agricultural landscapes (Schmitt et al. 2022), and inhabitants of a watershed (Arias-Arevalo et al. 2017). As relational values seem to resonate strongly within different stakeholder groups, including nature visitors of protected areas, further research needs to explore how different relational values are expressed by different people within one stakeholder group. For example, Brück et al. (2023) found that social cohesion was more critical to cash croppers and forest users than other local smallholders in Ethiopia. Riechers et al. (2021) found that local people in rural areas of Lower Saxony (Germany) often raised the relational value of cultural identity when expressing cognitive and experiential connectedness to nature, while sense of place was often raised in relation to emotional connection to nature. In this study, we found that nature visitors rarely expressed identity, but instead, they expressed care and stewardship, social responsibility, aesthetic, and therapeutic values. Similar to the abovementioned studies, we also found that nature visitors expressed relational values differently (Figure 3).

Moreover, our results showed that diversity in values can be found within individual stakeholder groups and for single NCP, with each of the top-ranked NCP being elicited by a range of values across study respondents (Figure 2). For instance, pollination was associated with instrumental, intrinsic, and relational values. The diversity in values that a single NCP can take was also found in other studies (Hicks et al. 2015; Brück et al. 2023), but further research could investigate if NCP are predominantly attached to particular values. For example, in our sample, the NCP recreation was only connected to relational values (Figure 2). Our findings further highlight the importance of comprehending the plurality of values that NCP can take.

Lessons learned and methodological limitations

In this study, we adopted the conceptual lens of NCP and value pluralism, allowing us to understand nature’s diverse and context-dependent importance. Through this approach, we revealed the significance of nature and protected areas beyond biodiversity conservation. Moving beyond a unidimensional valuation approach, we painted a rich picture of the meaning of nature and NCP to people and how people perceive their role in human-nature relationships. Thereby, we demonstrated that valuation is more than eliciting people’s willingness to pay for one certain social goal; it is about why nature and NCP matter to people (Tadaki et al. 2017).

In policymaking, an integrated values assessment approach can be incorporated into existing processes to promote social and environmental justice through the inclusion of multiple values into decision-making. This is especially important in contexts of power asymmetries and environmental conflicts (Jacobs et al. 2016). Particularly, research on plural values can enhance the transparency and justification of management decisions (Jones et al. 2016). While there is emerging consensus that formalising values and needs of different stakeholders is a cornerstone in environmental policy and management (Tadaki et al. 2017), current decision-making tools are still unsuited to deal with value pluralism (Trainor 2006) and researchers need to address how values can be integrated into decision-making (Boeraeve et al. 2015; Neuteleers and Hugé 2021). To adhere to the multiplicity and complexities of values, scholars have suggested to employ discursive methods (Trainor 2006) such as focus groups (Powell and Single 1996) or citizen´s juries (Street et al. 2014), which allow to expand participants’ perspectives (Cord et al. 2017) and support the integration of values into decision-making.

In general, assessing the importance of NCP ‘involves both unravelling a hierarchy or the ranking of priorities (quantitative aspects) and analysis of the narrative importance (qualitative aspects) that justifies the reasons for such’ (Tauro et al. 2018, p. 1). By combining a ranking exercise with open-ended questions, we revealed preferences and values for a range of NCP. Other scholars have successfully used the integration of quantitative and qualitative research methods to provide a comprehensive valuation of ecosystems (Hicks et al. 2015; Arias-Arevalo et al. 2017; Schmitt et al. 2022). As values are sensitive and subjective by their very nature, qualitative methods through open-ended prompts allow for a more exploratory approach where multiple values can be expressed (Gould et al. 2015; Hatton MacDonald et al. 2013).

However, we also acknowledge some inevitable blind spots of our chosen research methods. First, a remaining challenge is the difficulty for people to identify and express their preferences for ecosystem services or NCP when they are asked to reflect on them for the first time (Felipe-Lucia et al. 2015). In our study, many respondents felt challenged by the task of selecting the most important NCP and ranking them in the subsequent step. Particularly, respondents recognized the complex interconnectedness of NCP and, hence, the difficulty of assigning individual importance to them. While the challenge of prioritising items in a ranking exercise may be especially evident for NCP which are indeed interconnected, the advantage of this quantitative approach over more in-depth methods is to reach a larger sample size in less time.

Second, our analysis partially explains the full variation in values and preferences. Including additional socio-economic variables could provide more detailed information on the characteristics associated with nature visitors holding a particular set of values. Alternatively, a more in-depth approach could facilitate an understanding of factors underpinning values and preferences but comes at the cost of time for collecting and analyzing data.

Third, pre-defining ranking elements (in this case, NCP) is a methodological limitation itself, as we could have missed important elements relevant to respondents. Open-ended questions and free-listing exercises could overcome this limitation but make it more difficult to compare across respondents.

Fourth, there was a high number of responses where no value was identifiable (24%). This was because respondents could not clearly state why an NCP was important to them. For example, some respondents referred to media reports about climate change and thus ranked carbon storage as most important, although they could not explain why it is important to them personally. Hence, in NCP valuation, there is a need to use methodological tools that generate a safe space and provide time for respondents to reflect on their values. Furthermore, it is important to note that our sample size is rather small when comparing the three study sites, plus the fact that many respondents did not elicit a single value may limit the generalisation of our results based on statistical analysis. Hence, we request readers to interpret the comparison between values across sites with caution.

Finally, regarding the challenge of self-reporting methods, differences may exist between the value expression of respondents and the values held. For example, social relations were expressed less frequently than other relational values even though our observations in the case study sites showed that respondents were visiting nature together with their partner, family or friends. It may be self-evident to our respondents that interactions in and with nature are part of human relationships. Hence, this may not be expressed in the interviews and should be taken into account when assessing values through self-reporting methods or observations (Cheng et al. 2020).

In fact, there are NCP-related values that may not be expressed through market or non-market valuation methods (Klain et al. 2014) but through the analysis of, for example, ethnographic or linguistic information of traditions or music (Russell et al. 2013). Our chosen research methods may have led to an underestimation of values that are expressed through alternative ways. For example, Bieling (2014) investigated cultural ecosystem services through 42 short stories written by residents of the Schwäbische Alb (one of our study sites). These short stories revealed identity, heritage values, inspiration, aesthetic values, and recreation as important connections to the cultural landscape of the biosphere reserve (Bieling 2014). Similarly, Plieninger et al. (2013) took a participatory scenario development approach at Schwäbische Alb and explored the future of ecosystem services. One of the key scenario narratives was local identity linked to diverse and aesthetically appealing landscapes (Plieninger et al. 2013). In general, the associations between nature and identity and spirituality have mostly been demonstrated for indigenous people (Lewis and Sheppard 2005; Lowman and Sinu 2017; Salmón 2000) but scarcely been documented for other cultures (Russell et al. 2013). Identity and spirituality are important values and aspects of human well-being that need to be understood but are inherently difficult to assess with methodologies that rely on a reductionist empirical Western lens (Russell et al. 2013). As values are expressed in diverse ways through mediums such as poetry, photographs, prayers, rituals (Trainor 2006) or storytelling (Fernández-Llamazares and Cabeza 2018), new approaches should be incorporated to existing scholarship to be able to identify those values.

Take-away messages for the management of nature-protected areas

Viewpoints on the use, management, and experience of nature are underpinned by people’s values (Jones et al. 2016; Kuiper et al. 2022). Studying values can therefore provide guidance for decision-makers (Trainor 2006; Schmitt et al. 2022). In particular, understanding values can help predict what policy decisions or messages are likely to generate positive or negative responses and help to communicate planned interventions to the public in a way that achieves greater societal support (Ives and Kendal 2014). In our study, socio-demographic variables, such as age, gender, education level and income level, partially explained NCP preferences and values (Figure 3). Hence, stakeholders with different socio-demographic backgrounds might hold different expectations towards policy decisions regarding natural protected areas. For example, if particular values or NCP are neglected in policy making, this could have implications for the acceptance of those decisions and create social conflicts (Ives and Kendal 2014; Irvine et al. 2016; Neuteleers and Hugé 2021). Therefore, to achieve public support of local and non-local people visiting nature in our three case-study regions, the intrinsic, therapeutic, and aesthetic values of nature need to be emphasised in policy decisions as these were the values that resonated most broadly within our sample (Figure 2).

While the consideration of relational values is largely absent in policy-making (Chapman et al. 2019; Chapman and Deplazes-Zemp 2023) our findings support the arguments of scholars to take up relational values in environmental policy decisions (Jones et al. 2016; Arias-Arevalo et al. 2017). Our results call for attention to relational values when it comes to therapeutic values. The empirical literature provides robust indications that nature is positively associated with mental and physiological health (Russell et al. 2013). Moreover, in our study, therapeutic values of NCP were often expressed as important by our respondents (Figure 2), supporting the literature on the linkages between nature exposure and health (Bowler et al. 2010; Alvarado et al. 2023). For instance, scholars have shown that forest bathing can reduce mental health symptoms such as anxiety in the short term (Kotera et al. 2022) by significantly influencing cortisol levels (Antonelli et al. 2019). Other studies highlight the positive link between plant and bird species richness and mental health (Methorst, Bonn, et al. 2021; Methorst, Rehdanz, et al. 2021). In this sense, therapeutic values could also be considered as instrumental values if people use nature purposely to improve their health or if it is prescribed as a health treatment. These findings support the claim that protected areas are relevant not only to conserving nature for biodiversity and NCP but also to people’s health in parallel. In sum, the importance of access to nature, particularly in protected areas, should be highlighted on both the environmental and public health agenda of policymakers.

Conclusions

With this study, we substantially contribute to the growing body of knowledge on instrumental, intrinsic, and relational values underpinning NCP preferences. Our study highlights the plurality of values within protected area visitors regarding NCP preferences and values, which are highly diverse and context dependent. Our study also revealed the plurality of values attached to each single NCP, highlighting the importance of considering plural valuation studies. Among our results, higher importance was attached to regulating and non-material NCP, such as carbon storage and recreational opportunities. Relational values were expressed most often as the reason why respondents considered an NCP important. Thereby, our results support the integration of relational values in environmental policy decisions, given the high relevance they have for a key sector of society. In particular, nature visitors expressed the-rapeutic values, indicating the importance of protected areas for public health. Interestingly, there was a clear gender divide, with women attaching stronger intrinsic values to NCP than men and some regional differences in NCP preferences. Overall, our study provides important insights into the values attached by nature visitors, which can guide the management and planning of protected areas and thereby stimulate support for conservation planning.

Authors’ contributions

JK and RI collected the data; JK, BML and MFL performed the analysis, JK, RI and MFL prepared the figures. JK led the writing of the manuscript. All authors critically contributed to the drafts and gave their final approval for publication.

Acknowledgements

We thank the managers of the three Exploratories, Max Müller, Julia Bass, Robert Künast, Miriam Teuscher, Anna K. Franke, Franca Marian and all former managers for their work in maintaining the plot and project infrastructure; Victoria Grießmeier for giving support through the central office, Andreas Ostrowski for managing the central database, and Markus Fischer, Eduard Linsenmair, Dominik Hessenmöller, Daniel Prati, Ingo Schöning, François Buscot, Ernst-Detlef Schulze, Wolfgang W. Weisser and the late Elisabeth Kalko for their role in setting up the Biodiversity Exploratories project. We thank the administration of the Hainich national park, the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Swabian Alb and the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Schorfheide-Chorin as well as all landowners for the excellent collaboration.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

None of the data are publicly available because of restrictions that protect the privacy of research participants. Ethical approval for this research study was granted by the Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2024.2342361

Additional information

Funding

This work has been (partly) funded by the DFG Priority Program 1374 “Biodiversity Exploratories” (433163377) through the project “Effects of land management on the Supply and Distribution of ecosystem services (ESuDis)”. We gratefully acknowledge the support of iDiv funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG-FZT 118, 202548816) and additional funding provided by the ValuGaps project funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF 01UT2103A). MFL contract was partially supported by the RYC2021-032828-I grant, financed by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/ 501100011033 and by the European Union “NextGenerationEU”/PRTR.

Notes

1. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

2. World Heritage List of Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe.

3. World Heritage List of Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe.