Debating nature’s value: epistemic strategy and struggle in the story of ‘ecosystem services’

ABSTRACT

We examine the origins and development of the concept of ‘ecosystem services’ from 1950 to the present, tracing the impact of distinct epistemic communities at different historical moments on the form that the concept takes in environmental policy debates today. Our politically and historically sensitive approach (a ‘conceptual biography’) stresses the intellectual, political and strategic context in which concepts are developed and the political implications of their underlying ontological commitments concerning the fundamental nature of value (their ‘value ontologies’). Over the course of three periods (1950s–1970; 1970s–1990s; 2000-the present), we trace the origins and emergence of two epistemic communities that have been pivotal in the concept’s development, and examine the value ontologies through which they frame ecosystem services and the value of nature more broadly. We chart milestones in the debate that has unfolded between them, and the growing salience of an inclusive ‘value-pluralist’ epistemic community alongside the earlier neoclassical-infused ‘economic utilitarian’ perspective. Treating each value ontology as a form of political strategy by which academics seek to promote the value of conservation in policy debates, we conclude by considering the capacity of each to enhance reflexivity in environmental governance.

KEYWORDS:

• Ecosystem services
• value
• nature valuation
• epistemic communities
• styles of engagement
• reflexive governance

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the interviewees who shared their insights with us. Jen Iris Allan, Graeme Auld, Tim Cadman, Lorraine Elliott, and Abidah Setyowati provided helpful comments on an earlier draft.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Martin P. A. Craig was a research associate at the University of Sheffield (UK) until 2019.

Hayley Stevenson is Associate Professor of International Relations in at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella (Argentina).

James Meadowcroft is Professor in the Department of Political Science and in the School of Public Policy and Administration at Carleton University in Ottawa.

Notes

1 With the exception of pacification, these styles of engagement reflect Bernstein’s five types of pluralism: fragmentary, flabby, polemical, defensive, and engaged fallibilistic pluralism (1988, p. 15).

2 Robert Costanza, Gretchin Daily, Paul Ehrlich, Harold Mooney, Richard Norgaard, Kathleen McAfee, Pamela Matson, Anthony Fisher, Ann Bartuska, José María Paruelo, Arild Vatn, Berta Martín-López, Erik Gómez-Baggethun, Carl Folke, Paul Vedele, Kristen Magnussen, and two anonymous scholars.

Additional information

Funding

This research is funded by the Europe and Global Challenges initiative of Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, The Wellcome Trust and VolkswagenStiftung [grant number GC15-1237:1].