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Ecology and the Social Sciences
Ecosystem management is as much a social endeavor as it is a scientific one. -- Mary Wallace
New interdisciplinary connections will be required to conduct the needed research, to educate scientists and the public, and to ensure that the special expertise of ecological science is available to environmental decision-makers in all sectors of society. -- Jane Lubchenco et al., "The Sustainable Biosphere: An Ecological Research Agenda"
Introduction
As Mary Wallace summarized, and as the Ecological Society of America recognized in its Sustainable Biosphere Initiative research agenda, efforts to understand and address the causes and consequences of environmental change require an unprecedented level of interdisciplinary research and collaboration among social and natural scientists. At the 1995 Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America, Richard Haeuber of the SBI Project Office and Carol Foley of the Army Environmental Policy Institute organized and chaired a symposium titled "Ecology and the Social Sciences," as part of a much-needed effort to acquaint natural sciences communities with the variety of substantive areas and methodological approaches pursued by the diverse disciplines comprising the social sciences.
Critical to the success of the symposium was representation from a broad range of social science disciplines. Richard Barke, a political scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology, presented collaborative work with Hank C. Jenkins-Smith of the University of New Mexico, using opinion polls of scientists and the public regarding ecological issues and the translation of scientific knowledge into policy. Bryan Norton, a philosopher also at Georgia Tech, presented a multiscalar approach to integrating social values with ecological knowledge, offering a more comprehensive definition of ecosystem management. David Simpson, an economist with Resources for the Future, examined the relationship between economic analysis and ecological issues, with particular reference to research in the emerging field of ecological economics. Discussing the contrasts among human ecology, cultural ecology, and political ecology was Bill Riebsame at the University of Colorado. Robert Keiter of the University of Utah evaluated an integrated approach to ecosystem management and the law. Mary Wallace presented her work with colleagues at the University of Arizona on the role of social science research in understanding the institutional issues inherent in ecosystem management. Paul Risser concluded the symposium with a synthesis that paved the way for discussion and interaction with the audience. Several themes emerged in the course of paper presentations and subsequent discussions.
Communication between scientists and the public
One theme running throughout the symposium was that natural scientists need to improve their communication with the public. Several speakers noted that the value of preservation from a scientific perspective is not clear to everyone. In David Simpson's words, "At this point, regrettably perhaps, the loggers are better at quantifying the benefits they get from exploitation of resources than the ecological community is at quantifying the benefits of preservation." Similarly, Bill Riebsame observed that western ranchers make land use choices based on how they feel humans should interact with the land, rather than relying on scientific documentation describing how human activities affect the environment. Addressing ways to increase communication and discussion of scientific ideas, Robert Keiter emphasized the need for open dialogue with the public, including naysayers and skeptics, regarding ecology and relevant laws affecting local landowners as a means to influence the decision-making process.
According to Paul Risser, the existing communications framework between ecologists and the public facilitates the passage of information in a one-way fashion. Scientists initiate a research program, and, upon finding results that they consider to carry a significant message, try to communicate that message to the community at large. This serial sequence of communication does not take into account the fundamental uncertainty of systems which requires adaptability and multiple perspectives. After all, the outcomes for which scientists search change with different people and different circumstances. In the words of Risser, "We need an iterative set of sequences." The confusion arising from unclear communication between the landowner speaking from the bottom up and the federal agency representative speaking from the top down may be alleviated by an iterative communication process.
Brian Norton pointed out that ecologists have a sophisticated vocabulary for communicating ideas and the results of research within their own community. However, this vocabulary lacks meaning for policy makers and much of the general public; similarly, there is no equivalent vocabulary for policy makers and the public to communicate their own priorities for research to the ecological community. According to Norton, society needs a vocabulary to describe why "species loss" or "biodiversity" matters to people. Norton advocated the use of terms that embody both prescription and description, such as ecosystem "health" and "integrity," that can be used by ecologists, the public and policy makers in an interactive, iterative, and ongoing dialogue.
Socially defined management goals
As an example of ways in which social and natural scientists have overlapping concerns, speakers noted that legal ownership and property law involve the setting of boundaries that are not recognized by ecosystems. Robert Keiter asserted that at present there is de facto endorsement of ecosystem management on the part of federal agencies and courts. However, private lands are largely governed by state and local law. Preservation will be achieved only through reconciling law and ecosystem management via public-private partnerships, incentives, and through assessing the public's willingness to pay for sustainable systems. To facilitate this process, adaptive institutions with feedback loops and mechanisms for managing resources across jurisdictions are required. Public support for internal organizational change and a re-examination of the theories upon which policies are founded is also necessary.
In further discussion on public involvement in decision-making, Paul Risser emphasized that the focus of natural resources management should be on creating bottom-up, decentralized processes that emphasize the role of landowners as local-level decisionmakers. In discussing the requisite partnerships, Risser noted the successful joint venture of private landowners, state agencies, and federal agencies in the prairie potholes region of North and South Dakota. Through setting objectives that recognize the value of biodiversity and the importance of clean groundwater to preserving the region, a damaged area important to waterfowl has been conserved based on stewardship for future generations.
Mary Wallace reinforced the need for empowerment of the public, stressing the value of socially defined management goals and research objectives. Wallace added that socially defined research objectives can only be achieved using an integrated and holistic approach to science, conducting research on broad spatial and temporal scales. Similarly, Brian Norton emphasized that characteristics of ecosystem health should be observed at the system level, rather than looking at characteristics of individual species, noting that it would take over 30 years to collect the information needed to specifically identify keystone and redundant species. A speaker from the audience noted that in South Africa, the direction of scientists' research is largely dictated by society's values and needs. Out of necessity, research is directed at identifying key species rather than marginal species.
New ecological economics
Symposium speakers also raised the point that issues surrounding valuation of ecological systems and services are central to the interface between ecology and economics. Managing natural resources involves trade-offs between different priorities, creating the need for a system by which the relative worth of different options can be measured, compared and assigned value. According to David Simpson, "non-economic value" is a contradiction in terms, even though the term is sometimes used to describe objects or processes whose value is not reflected by traditional economic means. If an object or process has value to someone, then, by definition, it has economic value. An economic model for preserving biodiversity, presented by Simpson, recognizes that evolution has yielded complex chemical compounds that would not be quickly or easily synthesized by chemists and are of value to agriculture, industry, and pharmaceutical companies. Revenue from products and services generated from these chemical compounds can be used as an investment to preserve biological diversity. Using such a model, estimates for the value of an as yet undiscovered species in the Amazon Rain Forest have ranged from $44 per species to $23 million per species.
In contrast with strictly economic models for valuation, Bryan Norton proposed a system for balancing short-term and long-term values that consists of one metric for economics and one metric for determining the success of a system in sustaining opportunities, or options for the future. As an example, Norton offered the U.S. Constitution as a document with irrelevant economic value but with immeasurable value in sustaining opportunities. In short, Norton proposed that different options for resource management be accompanied by an economic interpretation of likely outcomes and what he termed an "Opportunities to Constraints Index."
Uncertainty inherent in science
A challenge to Norton's notion of an Opportunities to Constraints Index and Wallace's emphasis on an integrated and holistic approach to science is the fact that there is a great deal of heterogeneity among scientists regarding their attitudes toward science and the roles they believe science should play in shaping public policy. The results of Richard Barke's surveys indicate that scientists and non-scientists exhibit a great deal of variability in their views regarding the use of scientific knowledge in policy. According to Risser, a lack of unanimity among scientists in the messages they send to the public stems, in part, from differences in the ways social, ecological, and physical scientists approach their work. The lack of a clear message from scientists leads to confusion on the part of policy makers and exploitation of that confusion by political interests. Risser pointed out that such confusion is inevitable and that, rather than insisting on a unified, clear message from the scientific community, the decision-making community should search for instances of agreement and capitalize on them. In order to do so, Riebsame stressed that it is important to walk into collaborative efforts with questions, not pet theories. Elaborating further on the interplay between ecological science and decision-making, Riebsame suggested that the information from scientists most helpful to decision-makers is rich, content-sensitive studies providing qualitative insights from diagnosticians sensitive to the history, complexity and ecology of a given region (e.g., the work of Clifford Geertz in understanding Asian agricultural systems).
Conclusion
As the 21st century approaches, the conservation, restoration, and sustainable management of Earth's resources are among the most critical challenges facing humanity. Understanding and addressing real world problems of climate change, sustainable development, human population growth, and increasing habitat fragmentation will require not only the expertise of traditional disciplines, but also new approaches that emerge when disciplines are interfaced. Unfortunately, the record of truly interdisciplinary-as opposed to multidisciplinary-research and collaboration between the natural and social sciences is spotty at best. Even as demand grows for better science on which to base environmental policy, issues are increasing in complexity and financial resources for environmental research are dwindling.
It is in the spirit of stimulating exchange and interaction across the disciplinary boundaries separating the natural and social science communities that the "Ecology and the Social Sciences" symposium was organized, Among the themes articulated in the discussion, speakers emphasized the need to develop clear, two-way communication among scientists and the public. Speakers also stressed that successful ecosystem management requires socially defined management goals and research objectives in tandem with an integrated and holistic approach to science. According to several speakers, uncertainty inherent in natural systems should not stand as an obstacle to developing policies based on scientific inquiry. Finally, different approaches to incorporating economic tools in assessing and maintaining ecosystem health were proposed.
Jeremy 0. F. Eddy and
Richard A. Haeuber
Sustainable Biosphere Initiative
2010 Massachusetts Ave., NW #420
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 833-8748
From: Eddy, J.O.F. and R.A. Haeuber. 1996. Ecology and the Social Sciences. Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 77: 112-114.
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