Untangling the Environmentalist's Paradox: Why Is Human Well-being Increasing as Ecosystem Services Degrade?

Raudsepp‐Hearne, Ciara; Peterson, Garry D.; Tengö, Maria; Bennett, Elena M.; Holland, Tim G.; Benessaiah, Karina; MacDonald, Graham K.; Pfeifer, Laura

doi:10.1525/bio.2010.60.8.4

Cited by 397 publications

(229 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…Then we asked our respondents how the services and indicators that were identified decreased at other points in time. This exercise confirmed the so-called environmentalist paradox (Raudsepp-Hearne et al 2010), i.e., that ESs are considered best at the beginning of the timeline in 1985, whereas well-being indicators (except debt) are valued highest in 2015.…”

Section: Methodssupporting

confidence: 64%

Can income diversification resolve social-ecological traps in small-scale fisheries and aquaculture in the global south? A case study of response diversity in the Tam Giang lagoon, central Vietnam

Hanh¹,

Boonstra²

2018

E&S

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ABSTRACT. Small-scale fishers and aquaculturists in the global south often face reinforcing feedbacks between resource degradation and livelihood impoverishment, a situation conceptualized as a social-ecological trap. It is argued that these traps can be overcome through income diversification, i.e., livelihoods that are maintained from variable income sources. Our aim was to further scrutinize that claim using the concept of response diversity. To do so, we applied the concept and analyzed income diversification in the Tam Giang lagoon, central Vietnam. Based on our analysis, we argue that high diversity in income activities does not necessarily lead to an escape from social-ecological traps. Although diversity in income activities in the case of the Tam Giang lagoon is relatively high, fisheries-and aquaculture-related income activities continue to dominate livelihood portfolios. The various gear and structures that these activities include all exploit the same ecologies, habitats, and niches of the lagoon. This finding triggers questions concerning the relative contribution of income activities to household income, but also how activities are (differently) connected to natural environments. Income diversification can only sustain natural resources and improve human well-being if it truly transforms livelihoods by connecting local users in new ways to ecologies and societies.

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Section: Methodssupporting

confidence: 64%

Can income diversification resolve social-ecological traps in small-scale fisheries and aquaculture in the global south? A case study of response diversity in the Tam Giang lagoon, central Vietnam

Hanh¹,

Boonstra²

2018

E&S

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“…However, there has been insufficient attention to understanding well-being as co-created by people and ecosystems (Smith et al 2013), as well as incorporating the subjectivity of well-being in this context (Breslow et al 2016). It is notoriously difficult to assess human well-being in a way that captures fine-grained variations within or among groups of people in the same place (Raudsepp-Hearne et al 2010, Daw et al 2011, Russell et al 2012. Applying sense of place tools as an indicator of subjective well-being could contribute to meeting these challenges.…”

Section: Sense Of Place In Assessment Of Ecosystem Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

The contribution of sense of place to social-ecological systems research: a review and research agenda

Masterson¹,

Stedman²,

Enqvist³

et al. 2017

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ABSTRACT. To develop and apply goals for future sustainability, we must consider what people care about and what motivates them to engage in solving sustainability issues. Sense of place theory and methods provide a rich source of insights that, like the socialecological systems perspective, assume an interconnected social and biophysical reality. However, these fields of research are only recently beginning to converge, and we see great potential for further engagement. Here, we present an approach and conceptual tools for how the sense of place perspective can contribute to social-ecological systems research. A brief review focuses on two areas where relation to place is particularly relevant: stewardship of ecosystem services, and responses to change in social-ecological systems. Based on the review, we synthesize specific ways in which sense of place may be applied by social-ecological systems researchers to analyze individual and social behaviors. We emphasize the importance of descriptive place meanings and evaluative place attachment as tools to study the patterned variation of sense of place within or among populations or types of places and the implications for resilience and transformative capacity. We conclude by setting out an agenda for future research that takes into account the concerns of resilience thinking such as the effects of dynamic ecology, interactions between temporal and spatial scales, and the interplay of rapid and incremental change on sense of place and place-related behaviors. This future research agenda also includes concerns from the broader sense of place literature such as the importance of structural power relationships on the creation of place meanings and how scaling up a sense of place may influence pro-environmental behavior.

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“…In this case, this is not about "biodiversity" offsetting but rather "utility" offsetting. However, the weak sustainability hypothesis can be regarded as over-optimistic in the light of recent works especially the TEEB and MEA reports leading to a very paradoxical situation called "the paradox of the environmentalist" [34,35]. Whereas values of biodiversity have been shown and the need to preserve it to maintain human well-being, it might be possible for the society to fall into an irreversible and highly degraded state of biodiversity while human well-being continues to increase, at least in the short term.…”

Section: Economic Foundations and Rationales For The Bo Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Biodiversity Offsetting Dilemma: Between Economic Rationales and Ecological Dynamics

Calvet

Napoléone²,

Salles

2015

Sustainability

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Although many countries have included biodiversity offsetting (BO) requirements in their environmental regulations over the past four decades, this mechanism has recently been the object of renewed political interest. Incorporated into the mitigation hierarchy in three steps aimed at avoiding, reducing and offsetting residual impacts on biodiversity arising from development projects, BO is promoted as the way to achieve the political goal of No Net Loss of biodiversity (NNL). The recent success of BO is mainly based on its ability to provide economic incentives for biodiversity conservation. However, the diversity of BO mechanisms (direct offsets, banking mechanism and offsetting funds) and the various institutional frameworks within which they are applied generate substantial confusion about their economic and ecological implications. In this article, we first analyze the rationale for the BO approach from the welfare and ecological economics. We show that both these frameworks support the use of BO to address environmental externalities, but that they differ in how they consider the substitutability issue and levels of sustainability with regard to natural and manufactured capital, and in how they address ecological concerns. We then examine the economic and ecological performance criteria of BO from conceptual and empirical perspectives. We highlight that the three BO mechanisms involve different economic and ecological logics and inherent benefits, but also potential risks in meeting biodiversity conservation targets. We lastly investigate the ecological constraints with respect to the BO OPEN ACCESSSustainability 2015, 7 7358 practice, and economic and organizational limitations of the BO system that may impede achievement of NNL goals. We then reveal the existence of a tension between the economic and ecological rationales in conducting BO that requires making choices about the NNL policy objectives. Finally, this article questions the place of BO in conservation policies and discusses the trade-off between political will and ecological opportunities involved in the BO approach.

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Untangling the Environmentalist's Paradox: Why Is Human Well-being Increasing as Ecosystem Services Degrade?

Cited by 397 publications

References 54 publications

Can income diversification resolve social-ecological traps in small-scale fisheries and aquaculture in the global south? A case study of response diversity in the Tam Giang lagoon, central Vietnam

Can income diversification resolve social-ecological traps in small-scale fisheries and aquaculture in the global south? A case study of response diversity in the Tam Giang lagoon, central Vietnam

The contribution of sense of place to social-ecological systems research: a review and research agenda

The Biodiversity Offsetting Dilemma: Between Economic Rationales and Ecological Dynamics

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