SAfeguarding Biodiversity and Ecosystem seRvices by integrating CULTURAL values in freshwater management: learning from Māori

Project Information

SABER CULTURAL

Grant agreement ID: 748625

DOI

10.3030/748625

Project closed

EC signature date 3 March 2017

Start date 1 January 2018

End date 31 December 2020

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 233 276,40

EU contribution

€ 233 276,40

Coordinated by

ASOCIACION BC3 BASQUE CENTRE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE - KLIMA ALDAKETA IKERGAI
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SABER CULTURAL (SAfeguarding Biodiversity and Ecosystem seRvices by integrating CULTURAL values in freshwater management: learning from Māori)

Reporting period: 2020-01-01 to 2020-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Fresh waters remain one of the most seriously threatened ecosystems on the planet and managing them in a way to reach good ecological and human health and wellbeing will be one of the great challenges of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Inadequate success of decade-long attempts to restore aquatic biodiversity questions the effectiveness of common top-down driven approaches focusing on ecological and socio-economic objectives alone. Approaches based on public engagement that take into account cultural values and knowledge of local communities are a way forward to enhance environmental management through concurrently strengthening people’s wellbeing. Little guidance on the integration of such plural values is provided in respective directives, which leaves the challenge to the water managers to overcome. An approach advocated to help with value integration is Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM). With SABER CULTURAL I explored a values framework based on Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) theory, to tackle a major challenge in freshwater EBM: including cultural values that build a conceptual link between natural resources/biodiversity and local knowledge. More specifically, I tested how to practically quantify and integrate western and indigenous cultural values with ecological and socio-economic ones and how to consider trade-offs and compromises in the development of EBM plans for two case study systems in New Zealand (NZ). NZ’s national freshwater policy is based on the Maori concept te Mana o te Wai, providing optimal means to implement SABER CULTURAL.

The MCDA-framework successfully achieved to weave together western and indigenous cultural values with western science-based ecological and socioeconomic values in a co-developed freshwater management plan with buy-in from the community. Clearly stating values as objectives and structuring them allowed identifying potential management strategies that target current system deficits, and ranking alternatives based on the objective assessment of their performance against all objectives combined with the subjective preferences of the diverse stakeholders. Values-based approaches such as MCDA are a way forward to develop inclusive freshwater co-management in NZ and elsewhere.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

I have initiated and established collaborations with two communities in NZ to develop EBM-plans for local catchments. To do so necessitated various meetings with key locals to explain the project, point out the benefits of the MCDA-framework, and to build trust. This phase was followed by workshops to gather the values the communities relate to their freshwater systems. I used this information to produce a hierarchy of objectives for each system, discussed and edited this “objectives hierarchies” according to further community input and the national water legislation, and populated the hierarchies with attributes and value functions. To identify the range of subjective preferences, i.e. weightings, for the different objectives available in the communities, I have performed one-on-one interviews with key stakeholders. Based on potential action alternatives, co-identified with the communities, I have applied scenario planning to rank action alternatives according to their estimated performance, with and without stakeholder-specific weightings.

Overview of results:
• Full objectives hierarchies for the two case studies based on community values, approved by the communities through extensive collaboration activities
• Comprehensive collections of available environmental information. For Blueskin estuary, this collection is in form of an access database which is accessible through the Waitati Library. For Lake Wanaka, the collection is in form of an excel database and published in a openly accessible report
• Development of value functions for all attributes and identification of the current status of each attribute
• Implementation of the gathered information in R-scripts to operationalize the objectives hierarchy, including the attributes, value functions and the aggregation of values to analyse the consequences of different management actions and the impact of different weights given to the objectives by key stakeholders on the action ranking
• Development of conceptual social-ecological system models within a Bayesian Belief Network approach for further population with probabilities

From the intensive collaboration in the case studies, four key lessons have been learnt:
• The MCDA-process and its outcomes significantly help visualise and organise community values, identify knowledge gaps and rank action alternatives
• Collaboration with local stakeholders can be uncomplicated, while getting engaged with local decision makers might be more challenging
• Cultural objectives were found to be important to all stakeholders; more important than economic ones but a little less than maintaining a healthy ecosystem
• Māori objectives were identified to be similarly important to all stakeholders when compared with western cultural objectives

Results of SABER CULTURAL can be exploited through science based policy making, i.e. can directly help shaping evidence-based policy in NZ and inform freshwater policies in Europe. This can happen in two ways. Fist, the process taken in SABER CULTURAL is based on true public collaboration and therefore recognizes the democratic drivers behind policy making. This is, for instance, required but rarely executed when developing management plans in the European Union. The process taken in SABER CULTURAL provides the means to directly fill this gap. Second, the integration of people’s cultural preferences in freshwater management provides evidence on how cultural(socio) and ecological freshwater values are linked. This information can be used to revise current freshwater assessment and management to account for, and include, human well-being which is poorly represented in current management strategies in Europe.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

I have produced the first example of using a framework based on MCDA to co-develop inclusive freshwater management plans based on true collaboration with local communities. I have demonstrated the practical application of the MCDA-framework with two case studies in NZ, weaving together cultural indigenous, western cultural, ecological and socio-economic values and in accordance with the new national water legislation.

Despite there is still much room for improvement, a mixed top-down/bottom-up approach without compromising neither the best available scientific evidence nor cultural beliefs and preferences of the whole community, provides a way forward in freshwater EBM and leads to positive outcomes for freshwater environments and local communities. With SABER CULTURAL I have set an example that the MCDA-framework is capable of operationalizing this endeavor and encourage managers to embrace the challenge of applying it.

SABER CULTURAL entails great innovation capacity for the Otago region and more generally for entire NZ. With my research I have demonstrated how to operationalize the NZ freshwater policy, which could function as a blueprint to be followed to develop freshwater management plans in NZ’s regions. Moreover, outcomes of SABER CULTURAL challenge the top-down driven development of river basin management plans (RBMP) in Europe under the EU Water Framework Directive and inspire working towards more community inclusiveness in future amendments of those plans.

Blueskin estuary north of Dunedin, New Zealand, during a calm morning at high tide (Case Study 2).

The iconic Lake Wanaka in Central Otago, New Zealand (Case Study 1 of SABER CULTURAL).