If you want to save the planet, look to the people

Nature isn’t a “nice to have” for a select few — it’s a “must have” for all people, and all life, on Earth. And yet, when it comes to decisionmaking about nature, the voices of a select few end up drowning out the rest.

Rectifying this longstanding inequity is a matter of pragmatism as much as fairness. According to our research, published this month in the scientific journal Nature, conservation strategies that incorporate diverse views and values are more likely to yield lasting, large-scale benefits for both people and nature.

The Biden administration has recently taken several important steps to adopt a broader view of nature’s value when it comes to natural resource management. But our research makes a strong case for going even further in connecting values of nature to other societal values like justice.

In our review of more than 50,000 academic publications, policy documents and other sources of knowledge such as Indigenous and local communities, we found a common theme: The people who call the shots — whether it’s in regard to natural habitat protection and restoration efforts or environmental assessments of dams and other development projects — often regard nature solely through the lens of market-based values. In the process, they ignore the many other ways that people may care about and benefit from nature.

Nature can also be valued for its own sake, or as a source of cultural and spiritual enrichment and identity. Many Indigenous Peoples and local communities depend on the natural world for food, fuel, medicine and more. But their relationship with nature is often infused with a sense of interdependence and even personal kinship that goes beyond the mere transactional. 

We’re poised to change that business-as-usual viewpoint here in the U.S., as the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is revising its guidance on cost-benefit analysis to include benefits that nature provides to people, like water quality regulation, flood mitigation, recreational opportunities and more, representing a wider array of nature’s values in federal decisionmaking.

This is especially promising because our research showed that despite the availability of more than 50 methods that we assembled for characterizing the diverse values of nature, less than 5 percent of published nature valuation studies find their way into policy. The OMB guidance, open now for public comment, is a major step toward closing that gap and mainstreaming the values of nature in federal rulemaking.

However, it will take more than merely accounting for the diverse values of nature to enable transitions to more just and sustainable futures. Indigenous values rarely make it into the management of their own lands and waters, often because of power asymmetries in decisionmaking.

When more powerful decisionmakers marginalize the voices and values of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, they alienate those who historically have been — and to a great extent still are — among the most effective stewards of the natural world. But when decisionmakers address these power imbalances directly, by recognizing the diversity of values and ensuring participatory equity, they create a more balanced distribution of project costs and benefits. This helps enhance the legitimacy of their efforts and can mitigate “value clashes” between key groups such as fishers, farmers and environmental managers, which in turn results in more equitable and enduring outcomes for critical ecosystems and the communities they sustain.

Two contrasting examples from abroad bring this insight into sharp focus.

First, the story of Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve in India, a heartbreaking example of top-down conservation gone awry. Here, in the shadow of the majestic Himalayas, a disconnect between government-driven conservation efforts and local community needs led to mistrust and disintegration of age-old traditions. After the area was placed under British colonial stewardship, the local peoples’ access to the forests and meadows was curtailed, largely without consultation or explanation and with little regard for their traditional culture, economic needs and spiritual connection to the land. The absence of community involvement turned a well-intended initiative into a tale of conflict and disillusionment that remains rife with self-imposed problems to this day.

In stark contrast, Raja Ampat, a beautiful archipelago in Indonesia, stands as a beacon of community-led, bottom-up conservation. Recognized globally for its rich coral diversity, Raja Ampat’s success is grounded in the delicate blend of traditional management known as sasi, scientific wisdom and community values. The synergy between modern marine resource management and time-honored practices has not only spurred fish recovery and stable reef conditions but has also elevated food security and local income through avenues like tourism.

The lessons from Nanda Devi and Raja Ampat are clear. True conservation success lies not in economically and politically powerful imposing their will upon nature and those who inhabit it, but rather in working together, respecting diversity and building on traditional wisdom.

The Biden administration has made progress on this front as well, with guidance released late last year that instructs all federal agencies to consider Indigenous and Traditional Ecological Knowledge as evidence co-equal to that from Western science — a huge advance in formalizing respect and recognition for other worldviews and ways of knowing. Along with the recent cost-benefit analysis revamp, this new guidance fits into a broader effort by the White House to recognize nature’s values and the benefits nature provides to society, including initiating national natural capital accounts that put our natural wealth on the ledger alongside our gross domestic product, and issuing a Nature-Based Solutions Roadmap and a Plan to Conserve Global Forests. 

These are important advances, but our research makes clear that decisions meaningfully including people locally affected by decisions, especially Indigenous communities, result in the best outcomes in the long term. The Administration can build on the progress made in its first term by re-examining the rights given to Native Nations on public lands historically important to them or that continue to impact them today.

This is a long road requiring commitment from more than one term in office, but the Biden administration is paving the way to take such necessary steps in the future. This latest research makes clear that, to reach this better tomorrow, our leaders — in government, business and civil society — need to make inclusivity and participation core parts of their approach today. It’s time to heed the lessons of history and embrace a future where we value nature in ways as varied and diverse as the people and natural world itself.

Becky Chaplin-Kramer is Global Biodiversity Lead Scientist at the World Wildlife Fund-US.

Unai Pascual is Ikerbasque Research Professor at the Basque Centre for Climate Change.