economic replacement costs. A famous example from the Catskill Mountains close
to New York city showed that the investment and supply costs for the purification of
fresh water using technology were far higher than letting the mountain range do the
job (Elliman and Berry 2007). Thus, the mountain range was preserved for its
regulatory services on economic grounds. If reed can filter toxic substances from
wastewater, it also performs a regulatory service. If the reed will be used to stow
walls to secure heating energy, it also provides a supply service. Pollination by bees
is far cheaper than by human labour. In this way, the ESS approach can open our
eyes to innovative bioeconomic strategies for the multiplication of ecosystem
services.
Cultural services are often underrepresented in ESS studies because they are
difficult to quantify and monetise. The domain of cultural values encompasses
aesthetic values, leisure and recreation, local design and natural heritage, meditation
and transformation, and not least the spiritual and symbolic significance of nature. It
is widely recognized in the literature, that cultural services are highly important to
many people, but are underrated in many ESS studies. This is an axiological
mismatch within ESS. As mentioned above, the stock-flow-model misrepresents
the axiology of cultural services. Both mismatch and misrepresentation indicate that
cultural values stand in need for a better ethical framework (Sect. 5). Kirchhoff has
proposed to discard the “service” terminology and speak of nature’s values instead
(Kirchhoff 2018, 2019).
The ESS approach points to the many compromises and trade-offs between
provisioning and cultural services in land use. There is a trade-off (conflict) between
aquaculture and recreation in coastal zones, a trade-off between blooming meadows
and intensive biomass production, a trade-off between rewetting bogs or peat
extraction, a trade-off between habitats for endangered species and tourist
destinations.
The ESS approach as such is silent on how such trade-offs are to be decided. ESS
as such does not include a theory of decision-making, conflict resolution, or
weighing goods. ESS can, however, identify cases, in which trade-offs are decided
against the demands for nature conservation. There are reasons to believe that
societal demand for nature conservation has, meanwhile, become higher in developed countries than its supply.
ESS, however, does not provide specific solutions to the interrelated problems of
discounting, substitution and compensation. The problem of the marginal destruction of nature also remains unsolved in ESS. It points to the fact that nature can’t be
destroyed entirely, but is lost slow by slow and unit by unit. Cost-benefit analysis
often come to the result that conversion at the margin is “efficient”. It is silent on
whether ecosystem services are equitably distributed among different social groups.
The distributive justice of ecosystem services and global distributive justice among
contemporaries in general opens up a broad field that goes beyond the scope of this
article. ESS enables the functional substitution of ecosystem services. If a “service”
is removed, such loss can be substituted by another service. Substitution of services
faces limits in the domain of cultural services. Therefore, ESS, requires some
additional ideas for the uniqueness of some natural sites (“de re”-protection). To
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K. Ott and K. C. Reinmuth
to New York city showed that the investment and supply costs for the purification of
fresh water using technology were far higher than letting the mountain range do the
job (Elliman and Berry 2007). Thus, the mountain range was preserved for its
regulatory services on economic grounds. If reed can filter toxic substances from
wastewater, it also performs a regulatory service. If the reed will be used to stow
walls to secure heating energy, it also provides a supply service. Pollination by bees
is far cheaper than by human labour. In this way, the ESS approach can open our
eyes to innovative bioeconomic strategies for the multiplication of ecosystem
services.
Cultural services are often underrepresented in ESS studies because they are
difficult to quantify and monetise. The domain of cultural values encompasses
aesthetic values, leisure and recreation, local design and natural heritage, meditation
and transformation, and not least the spiritual and symbolic significance of nature. It
is widely recognized in the literature, that cultural services are highly important to
many people, but are underrated in many ESS studies. This is an axiological
mismatch within ESS. As mentioned above, the stock-flow-model misrepresents
the axiology of cultural services. Both mismatch and misrepresentation indicate that
cultural values stand in need for a better ethical framework (Sect. 5). Kirchhoff has
proposed to discard the “service” terminology and speak of nature’s values instead
(Kirchhoff 2018, 2019).
The ESS approach points to the many compromises and trade-offs between
provisioning and cultural services in land use. There is a trade-off (conflict) between
aquaculture and recreation in coastal zones, a trade-off between blooming meadows
and intensive biomass production, a trade-off between rewetting bogs or peat
extraction, a trade-off between habitats for endangered species and tourist
destinations.
The ESS approach as such is silent on how such trade-offs are to be decided. ESS
as such does not include a theory of decision-making, conflict resolution, or
weighing goods. ESS can, however, identify cases, in which trade-offs are decided
against the demands for nature conservation. There are reasons to believe that
societal demand for nature conservation has, meanwhile, become higher in developed countries than its supply.
ESS, however, does not provide specific solutions to the interrelated problems of
discounting, substitution and compensation. The problem of the marginal destruction of nature also remains unsolved in ESS. It points to the fact that nature can’t be
destroyed entirely, but is lost slow by slow and unit by unit. Cost-benefit analysis
often come to the result that conversion at the margin is “efficient”. It is silent on
whether ecosystem services are equitably distributed among different social groups.
The distributive justice of ecosystem services and global distributive justice among
contemporaries in general opens up a broad field that goes beyond the scope of this
article. ESS enables the functional substitution of ecosystem services. If a “service”
is removed, such loss can be substituted by another service. Substitution of services
faces limits in the domain of cultural services. Therefore, ESS, requires some
additional ideas for the uniqueness of some natural sites (“de re”-protection). To
142
K. Ott and K. C. Reinmuth