The neglected stepchildren of forest-based ecosystem services: Cultural, spiritual, and aesthetic values

Abstract

Humans sometimes, perhaps often, form deeply personal and important attachments to ‘things’ such as trees. Such attachments reflect the value these ‘things’ have in our lives and often are based on cultural (shared) or spiritual (individualistic) meanings. However, there has been relatively little discussion of environmental services that are symbolic, cultural or spiritual. One potential problem created as a by-product of this lack of discussion is that there may be a tendency to inadvertently trivialize the importance of cultural and/or spiritual environmental services. A second problem is that it is essentially inconceivable, at the present time, to consider functioning markets in which such services are traded. In this paper, I explore both of these themes. In terms of addressing the importance of cultural/aesthetic/spiritual values of trees, specifically, occasionally an event occurs that reminds us forcefully that these values are not trivial – indeed, they may be quite sizable – and command our attention as scientists and in policy discussions. The recent poisoning of Auburn University's beloved Toomer's oaks provides a compelling case study. With respect to the absence of markets for cultural/spiritual/aesthetic services, I seek to better understand why markets have emerged for certain environmental services but not for others.