Opinion: Why protect nature? Rethinking values and the environment

By Kai Ma Chan, P. Balvanera, K. Benessaiah, M. Chapman, S. Díaz, E. Gómez‐Baggethun, Rachelle K. Gould, N. Hannahs, K. Jax, Sarah C. Klain and 10 more. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2016

1,517 citations recorded by the source corpus.

A cornerstone of environmental policy is the debate over protecting nature for humans’ sake (instrumental values) or for nature’s (intrinsic values) (1). We propose that focusing only on instrumental or intrinsic values may fail to resonate with views on personal and collective well-being, or “what is right,” with regard to nature and the environment. Without complementary attention to other ways that value is expressed and realized by people, such a focus may inadvertently promote worldviews at odds with fair and desirable futures. It is time to engage seriously with a third class of values, one with diverse roots and current expressions: relational values. By doing so, we reframe the discussion about environmental protection, and open the door to new, potentially more productive policy approaches.

Subfields: Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law, Nature and Landscape Conservation, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5ddb5493b8519ed7f9e19769fb09c2f444d631f1

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Citations in the corpus

A place-based approach to payments for ecosystem services (2017, background): “Many people experience emotional and spiritual connections to such places, which are difficult to express in monetary terms, because they are relational and non-consequentialist (Bryce et al. in press; Cooper et al. in press; Chan et al., 2016).”
Levers and leverage points for pathways to sustainability (2020, methodology): “An important step towards such widespread changes in action would be to unleash latent capabilities and relational values (including virtues and principles regarding human relationships involving nature, such as responsibility, stewardship and care; Chan et al., 2016; Chan, Gould, & Pascual, 2018).”
Getting the message right on nature‐based solutions to climate change (2021, positive): “Importantly, such NbS tap into relational and moral values, including intangible connections to nature, which also encourages stewardship and care (Chan et al., 2016; Fischer et al., 2020).”
The mediating role of place attachment between nature connectedness and human well-being: perspectives from Japan (2019, background): “This notion got stronger with the conceptual development of relational values and studies that identified place attachment as one of the significant expressions of relational values that could aid in understanding the people–nature relation and its influence on well-being (Beery and Wolf-Watz 2014; ”
A relational turn for sustainability science? Relational thinking, leverage points and transformations (2020, background): “Finally, Chan et al. (2016) critique the focus in environmental and sustainability policy on the dichotomy between intrinsic and instrumental values and suggest that more effective interventions will respond to a new class of ‘relational values’ derivative of the relationships that people have with…”
A new valuation school: Integrating diverse values of nature in resource and land use decisions (2016, background): “, 2014), or the diverse activities developed in community in a natural setting (Bieling et al., 2014; Chan et al., 2016).”
The impact of information, value-deliberation and group-based decision-making on values for ecosystem services : integrating deliberative monetary valuation and storytelling (2016, background): “…suited as a means to bring transcen-dental values into deliberation, providing an approachable way to consider them as well as revealing values that are not necessarily expressed through more abstract deliberations on utility, duties or virtues (Chan et al., 2016; O ’ Neill et al., 2008).”
Valuing nature's contributions to people: the IPBES approach (2017, background): “values inherent to nature, independent of human judgement) dimensions of nature [11 ,16].”
Recreational cultural ecosystem services: How do people describe the value? (2017, methodology): “In using an interpretative approach, we follow the call from IPBES and Chan et al. (2016) to diversify the perspective of how values of ES can be analyzed, and explore the plurality of values individuals assign to ecosystems in a specific geographical context.”
Payments for Ecosystem Services: Rife With Problems and Potential—For Transformation Towards Sustainability (2017, methodology): “Ultimately, reimagined PES programs could contribute to the crucial task of normalizing the taking of responsibility for one’s impacts—a potentially powerful relational value (Chan et al. 2016).”
The green care code: How nature connectedness and simple activities help explain pro‐nature conservation behaviours (2020, background): “As Chan et al. (2016) noted, relational values, such as a sense of nature connectedness, make life meaningful in part by virtue of the actions they coax from people—in this case, pro-nature conservation behaviour.”
Benefit relevant indicators: Ecosystem services measures that link ecological and social outcomes (2018, positive): “BRIs can also be interpreted as arising from relational values that characterize the various ways that nature gives meaning and value to people (Chan et al., 2016; Tadaki et al., 2016).”