Ecological Economics 108 (2014) 208–214 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Ecological Economics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon Methodological and Ideological Options The strange case of cultural services: Limits of the ecosystem services paradigm☆ Robert H. Winthrop Socioeconomics Program (WO-210), USDI Bureau of Land Management, 20 M Street SE (2134 LM), Washington, DC 20003, USA article info abstract Article history: As interest in the concept of ecosystem services (ES) has grown, so has its scope. This paper considers some lim- Received 31 May 2014 itations of the ES paradigm by examining one category of ES: cultural services, including the environmental basis Received in revised form 16 October 2014 for esthetic, spiritual, and recreational experiences, cultural heritage, sense of place, and ways of life. It examines Accepted 19 October 2014 whether cultural ES can be assessed in terms of purely individual benefits or if social/collective considerations Available online xxxx must be included; and whether the concept of ‘services’ even provides an appropriate framework for under- Keywords: standing such values. To pursue these questions I consider the recent literature on the assessment and valuation ‘ ’ Cultural ecosystem services of cultural services and assess the adequacy of this perspective against several examples from American Indian Culture communities of the Pacific Northwest. Three characteristics of these situations from Indian Country are problem- Environmental value atic for an ES framework: the social construction of environmental experience, the symbolic character of environ- Native North America mental knowledge, and the multidimensionality of environmental value. On the basis of this analysis, I propose a Stewardship model of culturally reflexive stewardship as potentially a more productive and theoretically consistent framework Sustainability science for characterizing such socially constructed environmental values and practices. © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Millennium Ecosystem Assessment describes cultural ES as the “nonma- terial benefits people obtain from ecosystems through spiritual enrich- Ecosystem services (ES), “the benefits people obtain from ecosys- ment, cognitive development, reflection, recreation, and aesthetic tems,” assumed a prominent place in environmental policy with publi- experiences,” including knowledge systems, social relations, and sense cation of the United Nation's Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (Reid of place (Reid et al., 2005, p. 40). A more succinct definition is “ecosys- et al., 2005, p. v). Today ES activities have grown beyond research and tems' contributions to the non-material benefits (e.g., capabilities and policy discussion to include widespread efforts to institutionalize the experiences) that arise from human–ecosystem relationships” (Chan use of ES information in the management of terrestrial and marine en- et al., 2012b, p. 9). vironments. Yet making ES metrics an integral part of environmental The ES framework is intended to be comprehensive in scope. In prin- and natural resource decision-making will be controversial (Lele et al., ciple all interactions of environment and society find a place. In addition 2013), technically challenging (Bagstad et al., 2013), and organization- to cultural services, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment considers ally complex (Scarlett and Boyd, 2011). Precisely because an ES frame- provisioning services (such as food, fuel, and fiber), regulating services work holds real promise for improving how governments and firms (such as water purification and climate regulation), and supporting ser- make decisions regarding environmental change, it is critical not to vices (such as soil formation and nutrient cycling) (Alcamo et al., 2003, overextend its application to problems and domains where it is inap- Fig. 3.2). While a number of ES classifications exist, they generally in- propriate. While the concept of ES provides an “eye-opening metaphor,” clude both biophysical and sociocultural services (Kumar, 2010, it can obscure the complexity of social–ecological interactions chap. 1, appendix 2). (Norgaard, 2010, pp. 1219–1220) and deflect the exploration of other approaches in both research and policy. 1.1. The Challenge of ‘Cultural Services’ This paper considers some of the limitations of the ES framework by examining the analytic effectiveness of one category of ES: cultural ser- The concept of ES emerged through a dialogue between biology and vices, including the environmental basis for esthetic, spiritual, and recre- economics (Lele et al., 2013, pp. 343–346). The resulting framework ational experiences, cultural heritage, sense of place, and way of life. The was strongly shaped by two economic assumptions. First, a stock-flow model is the most appropriate way to understand environmental expe- rience. This posits a flow of human benefits linking ecological and eco- ☆ The views expressed are the author's, and do not represent the policies of the U.S. “ Department of the Interior. nomic systems (Norgaard, 2010, p. 1219), involving the intertwined E-mail address: [email protected]. notions of natural capital ‘stocks’ and the ecosystem services that flow http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2014.10.005 0921-8009/© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. R.H. Winthrop / Ecological Economics 108 (2014) 208–214 209 like interest or dividends from those stocks” (de Groot et al., 2010, extended from intensive relations of reciprocity among kinsmen to p. 13). Second, environmental value is best understood through the wel- cosmic relations of reciprocal life-giving between men and animals, fare perspective of neoclassical economics. Individuals are rational wel- passing by way of the revived winter festivals that had classically fare maximizers. The values at stake even in complex, long-term effected such interchanges. ecological shifts should be assessed by aggregating their willingness- [Sahlins, 1999, p. viii] to-accept or willingness-to-pay for anticipated changes in particular services (Norton and Noonan, 2007, p. 667). Here the effects of technological change less concerned individual My interest in clarifying the limitations of the ES framework stems benefit and rather more involved strengthening social and ritual rela- from two concerns. tionships—matters difficult to interpret within the ES framework. From the standpoint of theory, the increasingly influential ES per- In ways to be explored, cultural ES involve a different type of phe- spective may be too narrow to provide useful insights about knowledge nomenon than, for example, water provisioning or carbon sequestra- systems, social relations, sense of place, or the capabilities emerging tion. On the nature of this difference hangs a series of contested from human-ecosystem relationships—at the very point that a more se- questions: whether economic valuation methods are appropriate for rious understanding of ‘coupled human-natural systems’ is critically some (or any) cultural ES; whether cultural ES are best treated as a sin- needed (Liu et al., 2007). By emphasizing individual utility and rational gle class of values, or require multiple approaches; whether cultural ES choice, for example, the ES framework excludes consideration of the so- can be assessed in terms of purely individual benefits or if social or col- cially transacted character of environmental knowledge, motivation, lective considerations must be included; and whether the concept of and values (Chibnik, 2011; Gudeman, 2001; Winthrop, 1990). ‘services’ even provides an appropriate framework for understanding From the standpoint of practice, assessing people's engagement with such values. their environments through the language of tradeoffs, which is funda- mental to ecosystem services valuation, seems in many situations 1.2. Methods for Characterizing ‘Cultural Services’ both methodologically and ethically inappropriate. I have spent most of my career trying to understand and address conflicts resulting from There is a considerable economic literature describing the produc- the encounter of communities deeply connected to places and land- tion, consumption, and valuation of ‘cultural goods’ and ‘cultural indus- scapes with actions involving significant environmental change. As a tries’ (e.g., Acheson and Maule, 2001; Throsby, 2001). The most basic consultant for nearly twenty years the communities I worked with challenge in importing this framework into a discussion of cultural ES were largely American Indian tribes. The examples of tribal environ- is the ambiguity surrounding the concept of culture. Economic ap- mental values cited in Section 2 come primarily from two of my projects proaches generally treat ‘culture’ as a special category of commodities: on the Columbia Plateau in the northwestern United States—one involv- those involving “the enlightenment and education of the mind” ing the relicensing of a hydroelectric project, the other the construction (Throsby, 2001, p. 4), such as films, paintings, magazines, dance perfor- of an interstate natural gas pipeline. mances, and pop music recordings. This contrasts with anthropological Yet there is nothing unusual in the fierce commitment to culturally usage, in which ‘culture’ refers to a system of understandings through valued environments shown in those examples. To make this point I which social life is transacted (Suranovic and Winthrop, 2014, note two recent tribal cases from a very different region, the American pp. 59–60).