Editorial: Nature's Contributions to People: On the Relation Between Valuations and Actions

• In line with other bodies and a manifold of researchers addressing contemporary environmental challenges, the Global Assessment of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, published by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES),concludes that a fundamental reorganization across technological, economic, and social factors, including values, is needed to achieve goals for conserving and sustainably using nature (IPBES,2019). This reorganization implies transformative changes, for example, in the production and consumption of energy, food, and fiber.While scientists and decision-makers increasingly acknowledge the need for transformative change, we lack specific definitions of the details of transformative change and agreement on how such change is ensured. However, by clarifying and assessing the multiple values of nature and its benefits, we understand what is at stake, for whom, and the tools for making priorities (Díaz et al., 2018, 2019). Valuation is, though, a means to an end. Likewise, increased awareness of the values of biodiversity is also a means to an end. The links between valuation, increasing awareness, and concrete actions, among policymakers and other decision-makers, including individuals, are crucial for transformative changes to start and proceed.These considerations reverse the established approach in economic valuation, according to which one uses observations about actual actions to infer the values the actor holds (“revealed preferences”). In line with this economic paradigm, the currently observed societal actions and resulting biodiversity change reveals a lack of societal valuation of nature’s contributions to people.If we would “transform our world,” as the UN’s Agenda 2030 demands, and with it the way societies act toward nature, this would reveal a new social valuation of nature’s contributions to people.Either way, there is a close relationship between actions and valuations.The articles in this Research Topic present insights from various perspectives and theoretical and methodological approaches on the connections between valuations of nature’s contributions to people, including ecosystem services, awareness, and concrete actions. The articles concern perceptions and actions among individuals and groups of people and aspects related to governance ranging from local to global scales, based on cases from various parts of the world.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Social och ekonomisk geografi -- Kulturgeografi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Social and Economic Geography -- Human Geography (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Nationalekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Economics (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Miljövetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Environmental Sciences (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

transformative change

valuation

practice

IPBES

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)