283
15 The Damage Schedule Approach
of an issue such as rule compliance or which fi shery projects to give priority, ensuring
stakeholder compromise and cooperation becomes a greater challenge. The point is
that illegal fi shing may proliferate or is dif fi cult to eradicate due to the existence of
diverse and con fl icting stakeholder views encompassing value, images and principles.
Understanding this diversity in values, images and principles would thus become an
important step towards alleviating illegal fi shing and increasing the level of compliance. Insights that stem from this alternate, but fundamental, viewpoint are welcomed and may contribute to fi nding ways to improve governability.
The following section proceeds with the aim of discussing how the diversity in
stakeholder views can be systematically examined. By bringing in the case study
accounts of illegal fi shing in Lake Malawi as an empirical context, we highlight one
of the tools, the ‘damage schedule,’ that can be employed to elicit people’s judgments and preferences as a way to explore their underlying values, images and
principles.
Studying Values, Images and Principles
Elicitation of values, images and principles does not present itself as a clear-cut
exercise. There are a variety of ways to understand what people value and how
much they do so based on one’s approach and schools of thought. Satter fi eld and
Kalof ( 2005 ) remind us of a useful way of categorizing values – axiomatic vs. relativistic traditions. An axiomatic approach operates on the premise that certain
values are better, more important and intellectually defensible than others. Typically
expert-driven from the fi elds of ethics, philosophy and ecological economics, the
values under this tradition are formulated based on argument (e.g. Kellert 1993 ;
Rolston 1994 ) and/or measurement (e.g. Costanza et al. 1998 ) . The relativistic
approach assumes that there are no right or wrong values, only different ones.
Abiding by the principle of ‘value-neutral,’ researchers in this tradition rely on
expressed preferences to monitor or elicit public opinion and conduct valuation
exercises for policy and management purposes. This chapter focuses on the relativistic approach due to its heavy in fl uences on policy and management process
through the collection of stakeholder judgments and preferences (Satter fi eld and
Kalof 2005 ) .
Implicitly aligning with the relativistic tradition, Gregory ( 1999 ) offers a useful
list of tools for identifying (environmental) values. Among the tools that comprise
the category of economic valuations are travel costs – assigning economic value to
natural resources based on visitation; hedonic pricing – capturing values in the
prices of marketed goods; contingent valuation – willingness-to-pay and willingness-to-accept; and damage schedules – estimates of the relative seriousness of
adverse impacts on natural resources. Non-economic valuation that involves nonmonetary expressed preferences includes attitudinal and opinion surveys, and smallgroup discussions such as focus groups.
15 The Damage Schedule Approach
of an issue such as rule compliance or which fi shery projects to give priority, ensuring
stakeholder compromise and cooperation becomes a greater challenge. The point is
that illegal fi shing may proliferate or is dif fi cult to eradicate due to the existence of
diverse and con fl icting stakeholder views encompassing value, images and principles.
Understanding this diversity in values, images and principles would thus become an
important step towards alleviating illegal fi shing and increasing the level of compliance. Insights that stem from this alternate, but fundamental, viewpoint are welcomed and may contribute to fi nding ways to improve governability.
The following section proceeds with the aim of discussing how the diversity in
stakeholder views can be systematically examined. By bringing in the case study
accounts of illegal fi shing in Lake Malawi as an empirical context, we highlight one
of the tools, the ‘damage schedule,’ that can be employed to elicit people’s judgments and preferences as a way to explore their underlying values, images and
principles.
Studying Values, Images and Principles
Elicitation of values, images and principles does not present itself as a clear-cut
exercise. There are a variety of ways to understand what people value and how
much they do so based on one’s approach and schools of thought. Satter fi eld and
Kalof ( 2005 ) remind us of a useful way of categorizing values – axiomatic vs. relativistic traditions. An axiomatic approach operates on the premise that certain
values are better, more important and intellectually defensible than others. Typically
expert-driven from the fi elds of ethics, philosophy and ecological economics, the
values under this tradition are formulated based on argument (e.g. Kellert 1993 ;
Rolston 1994 ) and/or measurement (e.g. Costanza et al. 1998 ) . The relativistic
approach assumes that there are no right or wrong values, only different ones.
Abiding by the principle of ‘value-neutral,’ researchers in this tradition rely on
expressed preferences to monitor or elicit public opinion and conduct valuation
exercises for policy and management purposes. This chapter focuses on the relativistic approach due to its heavy in fl uences on policy and management process
through the collection of stakeholder judgments and preferences (Satter fi eld and
Kalof 2005 ) .
Implicitly aligning with the relativistic tradition, Gregory ( 1999 ) offers a useful
list of tools for identifying (environmental) values. Among the tools that comprise
the category of economic valuations are travel costs – assigning economic value to
natural resources based on visitation; hedonic pricing – capturing values in the
prices of marketed goods; contingent valuation – willingness-to-pay and willingness-to-accept; and damage schedules – estimates of the relative seriousness of
adverse impacts on natural resources. Non-economic valuation that involves nonmonetary expressed preferences includes attitudinal and opinion surveys, and smallgroup discussions such as focus groups.