Ecosystem Services, Wellbeing and Justice: Developing Tools for Research and Development Practice

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The management of ecosystems in the Global South often involves tradeoffs between the conservation of global ecosystem services (ES, e.g. biodiversity), on the one hand, and provision of ES (e.g. food) and protection from ecosystem disservices (ED, e.g. crop raids) for local people. In our ESPA-funded 'Just Ecosystem Management' research, we found that the use of justice analyses improved our conceptual understanding of such tradeoffs and provided theoretical insights into how we might work to resolve them. In this proposed follow-on project, we combine the insights on justice with recent innovations in wellbeing research, translate this novel conceptual approach into a robust strategy for empirical research and develop research tools for the wider ESPA community. The underlying rationale is that an equitable distribution of ES and ED, meaningful participation of poor people in management decisions and recognition of their knowledge and experiences creates positive impacts on the contribution of ES to poverty alleviation.We build on knowledge of the Nam Et Phou Loeuy region in northern Laos accumulated under the I-REDD+ Project and a comparison of three governance interventions intended to reconcile global and local ES (resettlement, use combined with protection, tourism revenue sharing). We provide complementary, multidisciplinary data by applying the following main research questions in four sites:(1) What ES and ED are present at the landscape scale? (2) How does availability and use of ES/ED differ between sites with different interventions and for different stakeholders? (3) How has availability and use of ES/ED changed over the preceding 13 years, and to what extent have the interventions caused the changes? (4) What are local stakeholders' notions of wellbeing and justice, both individually and collectively, with particular regard to ES and ED?(5) How do people perceive changes in their individual wellbeing? What contributions do ES make to wellbeing, what harms do ED create, and how has this changed?(6) How do different stakeholders (collectively and individually) and experts evaluate different forms of interventions to be just or unjust, and how do their evaluations relate to wellbeing outcomes?The project will produce four main outputs for ESPA research:1) Empirical insights on how different interventions designed to reconcile local and global ES affect the contributions of ES to poverty alleviation. 2) Tools for wider research on the contributions of ES to poverty alleviation appropriate to remote areas of the Global South, including:- Disaggregated ES and ED inventory- Guidelines for expert justice assessments of ecosystem management- Protocol for participatory workshops on ES, wellbeing and justice- Interview guide on ES, wellbeing and justice3) Data sets on ES/ED and their effects on wellbeing.4) The Participatory Ecosystem Services Inventory Tool (PESIT), which would allow local communities to identify and measure a range of ES/ED and map key stakeholders with support from external facilitators. The research will be planned and tools designed alongside the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in consultation with local stakeholders including government officials, NGOs and researchers. WCS are a major global stakeholder in ecosystem management and are actively keen to be involved in testing of tools in their own sites in Laos and Cambodia and applying these tools to improve the effectiveness of interventions in including and benefitting poor and marginalised individuals and groups. The tool will ultimately be made available in the form of a manual, disseminated over the internet and through presentations at selected international forums. It is expected to be of direct relevance to the work of government officials, donors and NGOs in the Global South, thereby creating tangible benefits for poor people in low-income countries.