With Cifor, we did an analysis of cultural ecosystem services in the Andes, so we understood that cultural ecosystem services respond to a multi-dimensional point of view for the people. Because the people can understand through the culture the other ecosystem services. So my challenge now is, how we can create, if you agree or not, to create a tool for the decision makers, any instrument, that they can understand, that they can include the values of the people.
Do you think we need to propose new instruments for the decision makers? According to the local context? Because cultural ecosystem services respond to a multidimensional point of view in the values and perception of the people, how can we communicate this to the decision makers?
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Ariane Walz: There are a number of approaches towards communicating the value of cultural ecosystem services to decision-makers. Very helpful are, for instance, maps that show hotspot areas of cultural ecosystem services, lists of identified beneficiaries, ratings of the perceived importance of different (cultural) ecosystem services (often shown for instance in spider diagrams), and rankings of preference in future management. Depending on the concrete issue you are working on, one or the other format can be more feasible, and of course, they can be combined. Independent of the concrete issue, I have the experience that decision-makers are pretty interested in information (well-focused on the currently discussed issue). We have good experiences with starting with a rather simple overview (means, sums, main reasons), but then go quickly into more detail, as this is often where the interesting bits of information and the novelties are.