Abstract
The values (i.e., importance) that people place on ecosystems have been identified as a crucial dimension of sustainable management of social-ecological systems. Recently, the call for integrating plural values of ecosystems beyond intrinsic and instrumental values has prompted the notion of “relational values.” With the aim of contributing to environmental management, we assess the environmental motivations (i.e., egoistic, biospheric, altruistic) and values that people attribute to the ecosystems of the mid-upper stream of the Otun River watershed, central Andes, Colombia. We analyzed 589 questionnaires that were collected in urban and rural areas of the Otun River watershed using the nonparametric Mann-Whitney U test and logistic regressions. We found salient biospheric motivations and the attribution of plural values (i.e., intrinsic, relational, and instrumental) to the ecosystems of the mid-upper stream of the Otun River watershed. Particularly, relational values were the most frequently mentioned value domain. Further, our results showed that environmental motivations and socioeconomic factors are associated with the expression of different value domains. We found negative associations between egoistic motivations and intrinsic values and between rural respondents and instrumental values. We found positive associations between altruistic motivations and relational values and between rural respondents and both intrinsic and relational values. In light of our results, we argue that intrinsic, instrumental, and relational values coexist in people’s narratives about the importance of ecosystems. Plural valuation approaches could be enhanced by differentiating relational from instrumental values and by expressing them in nonmonetary terms. We argue that multiple values of ecosystems expressed by rural and urban societies should be included in environmental management to tackle social conflicts and consider the diverse needs and interests of different social actors.
Highlights
Ecosystems provide vital ecosystem services to humans such as freshwater, energy, food, climate regulation, hydrological regulation, recreation, and aesthetic experiences (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005)
From the dichotomy of intrinsic vs. instrumental values to the empirical recognition of plural values Our results show that both urban and rural respondents attributed diverse values to the ecosystems of the mid-upper stream of the Otún River watershed, including intrinsic, relational, and instrumental values (Fig. 3, Table 4)
One respondent mentioned that the ecosystems of the mid-upper stream of the Otún River watershed are important because “Water is indispensable for life on the planet: for humans, animals and plants
Summary
Ecosystems provide vital ecosystem services to humans such as freshwater, energy, food, climate regulation, hydrological regulation, recreation, and aesthetic experiences (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005). Human decisions and behaviors toward ecosystems influence ecosystems’ capacity to supply ecosystem services (Daily et al 2009). Human decisions and behaviors toward ecosystems are determined by the multiples ways in which nature, ecosystems, or ecosystems services are important for individuals or social groups (Ives and Kendal 2014, Jones et al 2016, Pascual et al 2017, Arias-Arévalo et al 2018). The importance that people place on ecosystems and ecosystem services has been identified as a crucial dimension of sustainable management of social-ecological systems (Ostrom 2009). The study of values, and other human cognitions, has been poorly addressed by the research on social-ecological systems (Jones et al 2016) and environmental management (Floress et al 2015, Castro et al 2016). Focusing only on monetary valuation emphasizes instrumental values while ignoring intrinsic and relational values (AriasArévalo et al 2018)
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