Research project
BIOMOT: Motivational strength of ecosystem services and alternative ways to express the value of biodiversity
Do sustainability values play a role in motivating people to act for biodiversity in successful projects and in successful leadership action? And how could these values be incorporated in current economic valuation methods?
- Duration
- 2011 - 2016
- Funding
-
The project is funded by the EU FP7
- Partners
Partners
The partners in the BIOMOT project:
- Institute for Science Innovation and Society (ISIS), Faculty of Science, Radboud University (RU), The Netherlands
- Manchester University (MU), United Kingdom
- Universite catholique de Louvain (UCL), Belgium
- University of Greifswald (UG) - Institute of Botany and Landscape Ecology (Working Group: Environmental Ethics), Germany
- Environmental law research group, Department of Law, University of Eastern Finland (UEF)
- Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC SAZU)
- Centre for Interuniversity Research on Environmental Psychology – Sapienza University of Rome (CIRPA-Sapienza), Italy
Short abstract
Ecosystem services have great economic value, yet loss of biodiversity is ongoing. We need new ways to motivate people to protect biodiversity. This project addresses the values of biodiversity as they are used in economic valuation of ecosystem services and alternative ways to express the value of biodiversity. The aim and expected results are a novel view on the motivations of people to act for biodiversity, and to use that knowledge to improve policy measures for biodiversity.
Project description
Nature in Europe is currently experiencing a crisis of biodiversity degradation. Biodiversity competes with economic growth and food production for physical space and public attention. Hence, the crisis of biodiversity degradation can be seen as a problem of a lack of motivation by society to act for nature.
Monetary values of nature do not seem to provide sufficient motivation for society to act against biodiversity degradation in an effective way, even though there are few people who would disagree that nature has value. The search for an effective strategy to motivate the public and politics into action for nature is still ongoing.
CML is perfectly equipped to address this question. It has been involved in more than 10 EU-funded projects, both as coordinator and as regular partner. It has experience in environmental sciences, including biology, ecosystem services, economics, landscape management and industrial ecology.
In this project they look for sustainability values in three research lines:
- Improvement of economic valuation methods
- Biodiversity values in successful projects and
- Biodiversity values in successful leadership for biodiversity
In this project all three research lines are embraced to arrive at new recommendations to motivate future biodiversity conservation.
The CML research in this project is carried out by Jeroen Admiraal in his PhD study called: 'Biodiversity values in economic methods, conservation projects and personal motivations to act for nature'
Admiraal J.F., Wossink A., Groot W.T. de & Snoo G.R. de (2013), More than total economic value: How to combine economic valuation of biodiversity with ecological resilience, Ecological Economics 89: 115-122.
Knights P., Admiraal J.F., Wossink A., Banerjee P. O'Neill J. & Scott M. (2013), Economic Environmental Valuation: An Analysis of Limitations and Alternatives. BIOMOT Project Deliverable 1.1(description of form). FP7 - European Union.