Abstract
Valuations of nature are vital for effective conservation planning, and discussions are underway globally on improving the valuation process. Plural valuations of human–nature relationships are the key for better, more inclusive decision-making, which is demonstrated in this research using a case study on human–ocean relationships on Ishigaki Island, a part of the Yaeyama archipelago, Japan. We applied a network analysis to text data obtained from answers on questionnaires with open-ended questions to quantify the importance of values with respect to the pluralities among local people. Therefore, five core elements encompassing the values of the human–ocean relationships on Ishigaki Island were proposed as follows: “Livelihood,” “Attachment and inspiration,” “Local marine culture,” “Respect and fear for nature,” and “Anthropocene environmental problems.” The “Anthropocene environmental problems” element included social and environmental problems caused by various human activities including excessive tourism development, and the data collected through tourism market value analysis implied that past ecosystem service assessments may have over-valued or even triggered this issue. The “Respect and fear for nature” element was found to be important as a potentially unique value in these regions, but this is currently understudied within the literature related to ecosystem services and nature’s contributions to people. This study is among the first works to extract and visualize place-based human–ocean relations in an Asian country. We hope that our methods and findings will be applied to other areas, especially to the local communities of understudied countries and regions, to drive the transformative change of coral reef governance in the Anthropocene.
Highlights
Valuation of human–nature relations: ecosystem services and nature’s contributions to peopleHuman–nature relationships have remained one of the most renowned topics of inquiries since ancient times
There were no official statistics or published/gray literature on the average length of residence, 19.2(years) or more should be considered as the appropriate time frame that sufficiently represents the perspective of the locals
Quantitative network analysis on text data obtained by questionnaires with open-ended questions, we extracted five core elements of human–ocean relationship in Yaeyama Islands, Okinawa, Japan
Summary
Valuation of human–nature relations: ecosystem services and nature’s contributions to peopleHuman–nature relationships have remained one of the most renowned topics of inquiries since ancient times. This category was criticized by social sciences and humanities scholars because it had been side-lined within the ES monetary valuation framework because of its intangible, (inter-) subjective, and incommensurable characteristics generated by the complex interrelation between people and nature (Chan 2012a; Chan et al 2012b; Daniel 2012; Fish et al 2016; Ishihara 2018; Milcu 2013) Introduced frameworks, such as NCP, have attempted to address the limitations of the previous CES concept by acknowledging the central and pervasive role that culture plays in framing human–nature relationships among diverse worldviews (Chan 2016; Díaz et al 2018; Fish et al 2016; Pascual et al 2017; Pereira et al 2020). The NCP framework has context-specific perspectives for more meaningful valuations/assessments of nature, in contrast to a universally applicable classification scheme—such as that proposed in the previous ES framework and that derived from a generalized perspective of NCP—as the latter approach may be inappropriate because of an incommensurability of values and the resistance against universal perspectives on human–nature relations (Díaz et al 2018)
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