Cost-benefit analysis in the context of ecosystem services for human well-being: A multidisciplinary critique |
| |
Authors: | Giulia Wegner Unai Pascual |
| |
Institution: | a Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Tubney House, Abingdon Road, Tubney, Abingdon OX13 5QL, UK b Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge, 19 Silver Street, Cambridge CB39EP, UK c Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3), Alameda Urquijo 4, 48008, Bilbao, Basque Country, Spain |
| |
Abstract: | This paper provides a critique of the cost-benefit analysis tool for ecosystem services policy evaluation. We argue that when applied to public ecosystem services, the theoretical assumptions that underlie economic valuation and cost-benefit analysis fail to fully acknowledge the multiple dimensions of human well-being, the plural forms of value articulation, the complex nature of ecosystems, the distributional biases of markets and the fairness implications of spatio-temporal framing. The current monistic utilitarian approach to ecosystem services policy evaluation should therefore be replaced by a pluralist framework composed of a heterogeneous set of value-articulating instruments that are appropriate to the specific context within which decision-making takes place. It is argued that within this pluralist framework cost-benefit analysis may remain an appropriate tool to examine the contingent trade-offs of local policies that have limited impacts on ecosystems and their services. |
| |
Keywords: | Ecosystem services Environmental policy evaluation Cost-benefit analysis Economic valuation Methodological pluralism Deliberative methods |
本文献已被 ScienceDirect 等数据库收录! |
|