Trade-off decisions in ecosystem management for poverty alleviation

Marije Schaafsma, Felix Eigenbrod, Alexandros Gasparatos, Nicole Gross-Camp, Craig Hutton, Fiona Nunan, Kate Schreckenberg and Kerry Turner

Ecological Economics, 2021, vol. 187, issue C

Abstract: The academic literature on trade-offs in ecosystem management has paid relatively little attention to justice and poverty reduction objectives. The aim of this paper is to highlight the multiple dimensions of trade-offs in ecosystem services management for poverty alleviation, and to support decision-makers in planning for the almost inevitable trade-offs arising from environmental interventions. The paper brings together different dimensions or lenses through which to analyse trade-offs in ecosystem management for poverty alleviation in a low-income country context. Following a literature review of trade-off decisions, the paper introduces the Balance Sheets Approach to structure trade-off analysis and appraise decisions. We apply the Balance Sheets Approach to analyse five case studies set in very different social-ecological systems where trade-offs were pertinent and undermined poverty alleviation. We show how the combination of ‘positive’ approaches, often used at strategic level, with ‘value’ approaches which analyse multiple values, multi-scale governance, power and capacity, is necessary to analyse complex trade-offs. Based on the case studies we identify four lessons for future trade-off analysis in the context of ecosystem management for poverty alleviation in low-income settings.

Keywords: Trade-offs; Poverty; Ecosystem services; Pluralism; Governance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800921001610
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:187:y:2021:i:c:s0921800921001610

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2021.107103

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland

More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().