Valued Rural Stewardship

Evidence indicates this building block is important because of the long-term undervaluing of the benefits accrued to humans through healthy natural ecosystems, the environmental and human harm caused by decision-making that does not accurately account for the cost of loss of healthy natural ecosystems, and the failure to recognize and compensate people and communities that steward natural ecosystems in rural and other areas.^1,2

Natural ecosystem services are “the benefits people get from ecosystems”.^2(pv) The goal of the UN-led Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA), a comprehensive effort that involved 1300 authors from 95 countries with 36 study sites, was to assess the current status of ecosystem services across the world and provide guidance on conservation.³ The MEA categorized ecosystem services into different functions – supporting (soil formation, photosynthesis, etc.), provisioning (food, water, fuel, etc.), regulating (climate, flood, etc.), and cultural (spiritual, aesthetic, recreation, etc.) – and explored ways to assess the value of those services. The MEA also modeled links between ecosystem services and domains of well-being, including security, basic materials for good life, health, good social relations, and freedom of choice and action.^2(pvi) The MEA found that humans have caused rapid and, in some cases, irreversible changes in natural ecosystems from 1950-2000 and that 60% of the services provided by natural ecosystems identified in the study were degrading or being used at unsustainable levels. Economic gains have come from the use/misuse of natural ecosystems. Marginalized populations, including people living in poverty, are disproportionately impacted by environmental degradation² and often have less say in how the ecosystems are managed.

Understanding the costs and benefits of ecosystem services requires a mechanism for assigning a value to different services and their stewarding.^1,4 For example, the US National Wildlife Refuge System estimated the value of the Refuge System as $26.9 billion/year by assigning value based on the number of acres, type of land cover, and the range of ecosystem services the land provides, including climate regulation, habitat preservation, and freshwater supply.⁵ In a more recent study, the Refuge System assigned economic value to the carbon storage that their wetlands provide.⁶ The MEA emphasizes the value of local and indigenous knowledge and suggests people should be compensated for their knowledge and resources, as understanding local ecosystems is key for stewarding them and often is ignored in large-scale development.¹ Other models incentivize sustainable practices on privately-owned land, for example, an initiative that incentivized sustainable forest management in Mexico reduced deforestation by 46-50%.⁷ The valuation of ecosystem services and those who steward them is not without challenges, as market-driven and private property models do not adequately accommodate for public goods shared in common.^1,8

One approach to value the knowledge and labor of rural communities in stewarding natural resources is shifting power away from external governmental or corporate entities to models of community-owned or community-managed common natural resources. In response to the influential assertion that ordinary community members lacked the capacity to manage their own shared natural resources and required private entities or government to control the resource, Elinor Ostrom and colleagues documented that, throughout the world, when certain practices and shared understanding are in place, community groups regularly manage their shared natural resources or common pool resources (rivers, fisheries, and forests).^9,10 Practices that allow for collective management include shared purpose, fair and inclusive decision-making, authority to self-govern, equitable distribution of contributions and benefits, and may involve structures for navigating community property rights such as the Common Asset Trusts.^8,10 Other studies have identified similar key elements for successful community management of shared natural resources, such as public participation, collaborative partnerships, communication and information dissemination, monitoring and feedback, and public trust.¹¹

1. Duraiappah et al. 2005
2. MEA 2005
3. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
4. TEEB 2010
5. Ingraham and Foster 2008
6. Patton 2014
7. Alix-Garcia 2012
8. Constanza 2021
9. Cole and Ostrom 2011
10. Ostrom 2015
11. Gruber 2008