Demonstrating the Values-Based WeValue InSitu Approach to Capture Hidden Intangible Benefits of Ecosystem Services in Nigeria

Abstract

The valuation of the benefits to humans of ecosystem services (ESs) provided by nature has become increasingly important. A current challenge is the measurement of the range of benefits which are not traded in the marketplace and are generally considered intangible, with further challenges to even classify them formally, e.g., as cultural ecosystem services (CESs). Previous studies have emphasized a related challenge: the strong need for engagement of not just experts but ’ordinary people’. Approaches using participatory approaches and less formal communication pathways to draw out local CES values have been reported. However, critical reflections of those studies reported significant differences in understanding between ’outsider researchers’ and ’locals’, calling validity deeply into question. Even deliberative approaches backfired by significantly modifying local social constructs during elicitation. In this study, we demonstrate a fundamentally different kind of approach, developed from the bottom–up sustainability indicator development process called WeValue InSitu. It focuses not on improving deeper top–down ‘engagement’ of a specific topic, but instead on improving local articulation of existing envelopes of in situ human shared values, naturally integrated. The WeValue InSitu output is a framework of separate but interlinked concise Statements of local shared values. Some of these Statements may refer to values concerning ecosystems, but situated amongst others. Here, we analyze the outputs from 23 convenience groups in three sites in Nigeria and investigate the shared values found empirically against existing economics-based MEA classifications. The findings include hybrid values which span existing CES sub-categories and even across into market-based categories. This opens a discussion as to whether future ES valuation frameworks might evolve more usefully with foundations built on empirically derived typologies of human values, rather than bolt-on modifications to financially based economics concepts. It also raises questions about the validity of current valuations made which cannot capture empirically found human values.

1. Introduction

The valuation of ecosystem services is a growing area of interdisciplinary research that encompasses diverse fields like ecology, economics and other natural and social sciences. It is a fundamental requirement for formulating effective policies that guide the utilization and management of natural resources. The accurate valuation of ecosystem services is critical for the management and sustainability of these resources. Early approaches to valuation adopted different methodologies, such as market-based approaches, revealed preferences and stated preferences, with varying degrees of success and challenges. A persistent and significant challenge has been the inability of the market-based approaches to fully capture and assign values to the non-market components of ecosystem services, and, in particular, capturing the less tangible dimensions of human–nature relationships. It is this research need which is addressed in this paper.

This paper explores a fresh and innovative approach towards valuing the contributions of ecosystem services (ES) to human cultural benefits, brought in from a more-ethnographic, fourth-pillar sustainability indicator perspective. This approach provides an in-depth, holistic and authentic perspective of aspects of social shared values in their natural settings and therefore supplies culturally sensitive information useful in context-specific scenarios. It has been utilized in developing localized social indicators for use in land remediation, where it was successfully integrated into the mainstream assessment framework, named SuRF-UK [1], and therefore shows promise for overcoming challenges in ESs. To fully understand what these challenges are, and why this fresh approach is needed, we first quickly overview the relevant development of this concept.

In 1997, an article in the journal Nature [2] made the first estimate of the monetary value of the entire biosphere as an average of USD 33 trillion per year—and most of it of non-market value, i.e., not traded. The very idea of attempting to put an actual monetary value on ‘nature’ was considered shocking at that time: it was taken for granted and undervalued economically (as was nontraded work by women caring for children or housekeeping). This number was larger than the global gross domestic product, and that article and related publications which introduced the concept of ‘nature’s Ecosystem Services’ sparked off avalanches of debates and conversations with citations in the tens of thousands. It achieved the aim of the authors: to demonstrate that ESs were much more important to human wellbeing than conventional economic thinking had ever allowed for [3].

A new branch of ‘ecological’ economics began to develop approaches to account for the value of ESs, and the United Nations commissioned a four-year study with hundreds of scientists involved, to develop ideas further [4]. During all those years, the original definition of ESs endured: Ecosystem services are the ecological characteristics, functions, or processes that directly or indirectly contribute to human wellbeing: that is, the benefits that people derive from functioning ecosystems [2]: (emphasis added by us). The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) used four categories of ESs, still widely used today: provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting. Of these, provisioning ESs are relatively straightforward for an economist to allocate monetary values: these services come via markets, which provides a ready-made reflection of their worth. But the non-market values, especially for non-material benefits from regulating and cultural services, involved significant challenges for valuation experts, because it is intrinsically unclear how to assign them a monetary value. Although there has been some progress to integrate them into the public and private decision-making processes [5], there are still many outstanding challenges. Below, we overview these challenges, and then set out our fresh approach and why we think it will make significant contributions.

The intangible and localized nature of these cultural ecosystem services means that they cannot be fully captured in any current frameworks of measurement, and involve inherent subjectivity, leading to high levels of variability when trying to capture them. The major challenge of the ecological economist is the absence of a generalized metric for validly assessing these intangible benefits, unlike the provisioning services, which lend themselves to objective measures [6]. Currently, the indicators used in the valuation of ecosystem services have focused on economic and monetary metrics. A direct consequence is the constant undervaluation of intangible benefits, which leads to narrow decision-making and inequitable distribution of resources. This has informed the growing recognition of the need to integrate socio-cultural values in these studies [7]. Additionally, the lack of a consistent and widely formalized methodology for socio-cultural valuation of ecosystem services makes it difficult to address non-monetary considerations in studies involving the valuation of ecosystem services [8]. This is a major factor affecting the development of robust overall ES valuation methods.

Another critical challenge is the context-specific nature of the sociocultural valuation of ecosystem services. This is important for two reasons. First, it implies that a universal value cannot be ascribed to similar ecosystems in different contexts. Second, it suggests that a single type of expert group is not sufficiently capable of capturing the values of a service; a wider scope of beneficiaries must be consulted, including the non-expert ones. Therefore, research is still needed to tailor valuation approaches to specific contexts and obtain diverse perspectives and measures of CESs from a wide range of beneficiaries. This may lead to a plasticity of categories of CESs that are not strictly fitted into the normal MEA categories. In this work, we embrace this possibility and accept new categories might emerge; doing so permits us to study this problem from a new perspective. The aim of this study, therefore, is to explore and demonstrate the utilization of a different, values-based approach to valuing the contributions of ecosystem services (ESs) to human cultural benefits.

1.1. The Need for Values-Based Approaches to Ecosystem Services’ Valuation

The problems of biodiversity loss, climate change and socio-environmental injustice are all products of a ’values crisis’ which can effectively be addressed by a combination of values-centered approaches for improving valuation and addressing barriers to sustainable resource use [9]. Values-based approaches to understanding and correctly valuing ecosystem services are gaining traction, with calls for the inclusion of more diverse values, like heritage values, and how they relate to other types of values [10]. Additionally, previous studies have emphasized the need to inculcate values-inclusive tools in ES valuation studies to accommodate the diverse and peculiar dimensions of users’ cultures and perceptions. If user-friendly, these tools could enhance conservation efforts and collaborative actions of both conservation practitioners and local users [11]. This concept is further supported in other fields/domains where there is advocacy for better linkages between economic growth and competitiveness, with societal progress and satisfaction. The economic values of companies cannot be accurately determined outside the values lens of the society, and companies can—and perhaps should—create economic value by creating societal value [12].

The concept of a values-based approach supports ‘ecological embeddedness’, which is advocated in several fields. It indicates the extent to which managers are rooted in the land, and involves personal identification with the land, and belief in the values of respect, reciprocity and caretaking of the land, and even physical location in the land [13]. The concept has been extended into ‘social-ecological embeddedness’ which shifts the focus to interactions between ongoing social relations and environmental practices [14]. This interlinkage is established as being useful for ensuring the sustainability of food systems, ecosystem services [15], and institutions [16].

1.2. Outstanding Challenges to Integrating Cultural Services

Although all economic analyses are based on supply and demand, the majority of ES research has focused predominantly on the supply side [17], neglecting non-market values of human well-being to beneficiaries beyond market domains [18]. Such accounting is intrinsically incomplete. There is additional worth of ESs as expressed by a range of stakeholders and from varied perspectives: no single type of ‘expert’ can provide valuations. Environmental experts (or even community leaders with environmental roles) are insufficient since they will be inadvertently biased to their disciplinary expertise perspective [19]. Common people must also be engaged—somehow—to elicit indications of the benefits of ESs to them.

Recently, the concept of Nature’s Contributions to People (NCP) has been widely adopted to reflect all the contributions, benefits or detriments that people obtain from nature. It provides two lenses—a generalizing perspective and a context-specific perspective. The generalizing perspective views nature as being distinct and separate from humans and social interactions, whereas the context-specific view considers humans and other-than-human entities as being intricately linked and interconnected [20]. The former aligns with traditional economic mechanisms but the latter provides a new, otherwise missing mechanism for non-market benefits (like culture and indigenous knowledge) to be counted [20]. The NCP approach recognizes that both perspectives can and should be accommodated in valuations without advocating for either. Furthermore, it views culture as crucial for understanding the links between people and nature: the lens through which the engagements between humans and their biophysical environment are perceived, understood and interpreted. The NCP approach also views indigenous and local knowledge as necessary considerations, and calls for them to be operationalized.

The next major challenge to be overcome is thus operational: the development of valuation pathways for human perceptions of ecosystem value which are currently generally considered intangible, and without a priori knowledge as to whose values should be counted [21,22,23]. This is an evolving field that necessarily involves a multidisciplinary approach that can intrinsically capture different integrated knowledge systems and hold authentic perceptions of the people. The foremost goal thus becomes one of obtaining measures of the value of cultural ESs from everyday beneficiaries. This is a challenge because everyday beneficiaries do not typically conceptualize cultural benefits in formal, objective, economic terms—and, indeed, the worldview of different beneficiaries will vary across sites and across benefit types because they are context-dependent and culturally constructed [23,24,25]. This means considerable thought must be applied to not only obtaining or eliciting the views, but also the nature and extent of ‘translation’ needed to convey local concepts to outsiders, and the pertinent validities of the processes involved.

Recent and ongoing studies reveal the need to more thoroughly consider these ‘translation’ aspects of the development of culture-based indicators of ESs value. For example, a study that used photographs to elicit articulations of normally less-tangible values found issues with validity evidenced by tensions in interpretations by the local people versus the ‘outsider’ researchers of what the photos represented conceptually. Thus, photos might help elicit more responses from local people than word-based methods, but they clearly introduced problematic biases of representation [26]. In other studies, many different forms of dialogue and deliberation have been explored (reviewed in [23]), which showed that although monetary estimates can be improved through deeper engagement [27], they may at the same time also significantly influence the very outcomes (i.e., social construct of the value) they are trying to capture [23,28]. It seems that the more deeply outsiders try to penetrate local perceptions in order to obtain locally valid valuation, the more they are in danger of disrupting and obscuring the local values. The goal of overall unitary validity for measurement [29] seems unattainable.

Other studies demand even more challenging advances. For example, Hunter and Lauer [26] state that ES knowledge must be not only locatable but also (locally) accountable. This means that the knowledge produced must both have attachments to and be valid for the local people from where it is produced. Thus, on the one hand, there is growing support for the concept of Lauer and Aswani [30] that ES research needs to be a situated practice that produces situated knowledge. On the other hand, any such subjective approach provides huge tension with the paradigm of economics where objective measures, and units of measurement, are required as prerequisites. Furthermore, large-scale global or regional assessments undertaken by The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) are seeking to generate evidence-based conclusions at large geographical scales.

1.3. Our Fresh Approach to ESs

Although these issues seem highly challenging in current ES conversations, they are not unknown in other fields. Sustainability has three well-established pillars of financial, environmental and social dimensions, but some research reports a fourth pillar which is much less tangible and has been variously described as a cultural–aesthetic, political–institutional, religious–spiritual, or simply values-based dimension [31]. This fourth-pillar approach has much overlap with the challenges seen in ESs, and its operationalization promises to mitigate several of them. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has promoted the cultural perspective—either as a self-standing pillar of sustainable development [32] or as a foundation underlying the other three pillars [33]. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) framed the missing-pillar debate in terms of cultural integrity (a term used to encompass shared values, beliefs and knowledge), as well as more tangible manifestations of culture such as ceremonies and objects [34]. The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) [35] has acknowledged the need for culturally appropriate indicators of well-being and sustainability that reflect true indigenous perspectives. Importantly, these several strands of fourth-pillar work were suggested to be operationalizable at the level of projects and groups by using an intersubjective values-based indicator approach [36]. A refined version which is more grounded and focused on authentic local representation of in situ shared values was later developed and named WeValue InSitu [37,38].

The WeValue InSitu process was eventually streamlined into a workshop format to reduce the time needed to 1 h for literate globalized groups and 2–7 h for groups such as village committees. It has been used in Botswana [38], Nigeria [1], the UK [39], India, Indonesia and Senegal [40], and several other countries [37].

The potential for the WeValue InSitu approach to be useful in ES cultural valuations is strengthened by several of its particular characteristics. First, its use is not restricted to environmental experts or any other experts: it can be used with any community of practice, which means diverse ES beneficiaries can be heard, including common people. Secondly, studies have found participants consider and state that the results are their own: authentic. Thirdly, the approach produces a naturally existing ‘envelope’ of situated shared human values of importance to that group, which contain diverse topics seen as important, from “that all people treat each other with respect” to “that our leaders live their principles” and “that we live near our forest”. In other words, any Statements about ESs would be situated and embedded amongst other issues of roughly similar local importance. Fourthly, although much deliberation occurs between the participants, the facilitators only guide the process via scaffolding rather than giving input to the content. Analysis of the micro-processes of WeValue InSitu shows the mechanism is of tacit-to-explicit translation by the participants rather than the construction or integration of new meaning not already present [41]. Fifthly, participants enjoy the WeValue process, probably because it involves ‘sharing’ between colleagues, and this ensures deep engagement and relevance are brought into the process. This approach has proven useful in producing human-based social indicators which have wide applicability in different contexts and domains such as land remediation [1], health interventions [40], etc.

In sum, we start with the innovative idea that the WeValue InSitu process could mitigate several reported current shortcomings in cultural ES studies. The aim of this study is, thus, to explore the possibility of eliciting situated shared values of ESs in local populations. We will do this not through examination of pre-defined categories such as in IPBES/MEA nor through social construction via researcher–local interactive engagement, deliberation or dialogue, but rather, by first assisting local groups to articulate “what is important to them” in their own ‘envelope’ of existing values-in-action according to their own ways of knowing, and only thereafter inspecting that envelope for the existence of ES-related values. This would then allow for an examination of the naturally occurring ‘types’ and a comparison to the existing classification systems for ES values.

2. Materials and Methods

To explore where cultural ES values were situated among other human values, WeValue InSitu workshops were carried out with several types of groups. The ‘envelopes’ (matrix) of their shared-values Statements were documented as Frameworks of data, with accompanying Narratives (Figure 1). These were then categorized using the MEA classifications to identify any ES values. The cultural or non-cultural nature of these, their situatedness amongst the other shared values of each group, and group type were drawn out. The MEA classifications were used instead of IPBES or NCP as they were more straightforward to operationalize. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment framework laid the foundation for the study of the interactions between humans and the environment. The MEA provided a comprehensive global assessment of ecosystems and emphasized the link between the utilization of ecosystem services and human wellbeing. It also projected the impact of environmental degradation on the achievement of the millennium development goals. It relied heavily on models to project future scenarios of changes in ecosystems and their services. However, it has been criticized for being anthropocentric, focusing primarily on human benefits to the exclusion of intrinsic ecological values. It also had a limited integration of indigenous and local knowledge.

The NCP concept, however, improves on the MEA by broadening the scope and including both positive and negative contributions of nature to the human quality of life including material, non-material and regulating contributions. It also integrates diverse worldviews including indigenous and local knowledge while acknowledging the plurality of values. The IPBES framework builds upon the MEA while incorporating the NCP as a conceptual framework. With its emphasis on policy and actionable recommendations for decision-makers, it operationalizes the NCP concept by bridging the gap between science and policy. It emphasizes capacity building in developing countries and is well suited for global and regional assessments.

The MEA framework was chosen for this study due to its simplicity, ease of application and widespread use, which could facilitate comparison with existing ES valuation studies. The IPBES/NCP frameworks, although more globally accepted, could have challenges with the complexity of integrating diverse knowledge systems. However, the WeValue process can serve as a bolt-on process for developing localized social indicators for qualitative studies in diverse frameworks and its applicability in the IPBES framework, especially with reference to relational values, is a welcome development which could be further explored in future studies.

2.1. The WeValue InSitu Method

The WeValue InSitu approach is a scaffolding process which assists groups to ‘crystallize’ their own ‘values-in-action’ which were otherwise rather intangible [41]. Scaffolding implies that facilitators provide guidance on processes but not content in order to teach participants how to manage their own learning. The main output of any WeValue InSitu process is a set of concise Statements of situated shared values of that group, in its own context, and in its own words. Figure 1 shows an example from a group of farmers that constructed eight individual Statements, consequently linked as shown. The foundations include, “#1: It is important to us that our population grows …” and “#2: Farming is what we are known for” and culminate in the narrative, with, “#8: We are empowered and can come together to discuss and agree on how to solve our challenges”. Such Frameworks are bespoke for each group: the members construct the meaning. The Frameworks of Statements are accompanied by a Narrative provided by the group to contextualize it for others.

Given the limitations of the traditional methods of ES assessments which often involves direct questioning and negotiations around specific ES values and the potential for introducing bias in the valuation process by presenting a pre-existing “external” framework, the new approach which we propose emphasizes a focus on the pre-existing shared values of importance to the group first before they are linked to their ecosystem services. This reduces the “burden” of a “performance-based” or “profit-driven” deliberation and shifts attention from the explicit back to the tacit. The utilization of WeValue facilitators who are trained to observe and ensure a balance of power is highly critical to the success of the process. First, WeValue ensures a neutral facilitation where the facilitator neither has a stake in the outcome nor an expectation of certain responses. Again, the contextualization stage which is part of every WeValue process lays the ground rules, which emphasizes the equality of all ideas and contributions from group members. Additionally, the facilitator often has the prerogative of calling up seemingly vulnerable participants like women and youths to speak first or to give their opinions on ongoing discussions, thereby ensuring a subtle power redistribution. Further evidence of the authenticity of the Statements produced in the process is found in Table S5 of the Supplementary Materials.

2.2. Study Sites

The research question is exploratory in nature and does not require a choice of specific participant groups; so, locally convenient sites available to the authors in southeastern Nigeria were chosen. Because it is known that WeValue InSitu produces outcomes reflecting the themes common to the assembled group, it was decided to involve more than one group type, but with 2–3 sets of each, thus allowing for exploratory inter- and intra-group comparisons.

This study was carried out in three towns: Ufuma, Nanka, and Nsukka. They are all located in tropical climate areas in southeastern Nigeria.

The majority of Ufuma residents are subsistence farmers and traders who sell their farm produce at the weekly market. The fertile and arable lands make Ufuma renowned as a farming community, and the king referred to as ‘Diji’, meaning a great farmer of yams. Ufuma is known for the cultivation of yams, cassava, maize and oil palm. It has attracted World Bank interventions like the establishment of rice farms and fish farms. From the strong farming links, we expect that local shared values might emphasize the ES value of the Provisioning type.

Nanka is renowned for its natural spring called ‘Isi atama’, which is effectively the center of the community, with many activities revolving around it. The community granted a company permission to produce bottled water for sale. They employ villagers and carry out some corporate social responsibilities like road maintenance. Nanka has serious issues with gully erosion, originating in the slave trade, where the footpaths used by traffickers were heavily flooded, leading to the formation of gullies. These are a serious concern to state and national governments and designated a ‘disaster zone’ by the Nigerian Environmental Agency [42]. In 2010, community members donated 10,000 cashew seedlings to assist with erosion control and gully landslides. From these characteristics, we expect that local shared values might emphasize the ES value of the Regulating type.

Nsukka town is the seat of the Nsukka Local Government Area. It is the boundary town connecting the south–east to the north–central parts of Nigeria. Nsukka has a population of 1.5 million, and it is a semi-urban town with predominantly farmers, traders, civil servants and university students. Many inhabitants carry out subsistence agriculture with cassava, maize, oil palm, cowpea and cocoyam. Flooding and erosion are major environmental problems there.

2.3. Group Types

WeValue InSitu workshops were carried out with convenience samples chosen where there was willingness to be involved and the schedules permitted it. The group types comprised teachers, ward councilors and village council members. The WeValue InSitu process requires groups to be communities of practice but not that they be experts. Every participant needs sufficient time to speak and contribute, producing the design requirement that the number of people involved be restricted to 3–8 persons for 2–3 h.

The research design is exploratory; so, the groups assembled do not represent a population but allow for the exploration of the situatedness of any environmental shared values amongst envelopes of broader values. We used the convenience sample of nine Village Councils in villages comprising Ufuma town, and extended the groups in the same location context, but with slightly different roles: Village Committees for Youth (unmarried adults), Health (people responsible for disseminating health information and giving public health advice), and Women (married adult females). Furthermore, for comparison, a there was a convenience sample of two Village Council groups that came from another town, Nanka, which naturally had a different ES context, and a convenience sample of teacher groups in two different towns—Ufuma and Nsukka. Altogether, these groups assisted in searches for suggestions of trend patterns amongst and between them. A summary of these group characteristics is included in

Table 1. A summary of the characteristics of the groups who undertook WeValue InSitu.

Group Focus (Shared Practice)	No. of Groups	Location/Character	Labels
Village Councils (mostly farmers)	9	Ufuma (farming)	VC1-VC9
Village Councils (mostly farmers and traders)	2	Nanka (spring source)	VC10-VC11
Village Youth Committee	1	Ufuma (farming)	VY12
Village Health Committee	1	Ufuma (farming)	VH13
Village Women’s Committee	1	Ufuma (farming)	VW14
Teachers	6	Nsukka (University Town)	T1-T6
Teachers	3	Ufuma (farming)	T7-T9

.

The shared-values Statements and their accompanying descriptive narratives were thematically coded using the MEA classifications as an analytical framework. The initial coding process was carried out by 2 independent coders and areas of discrepancies were discussed, clarified and resolved through consensus. Afterwards, a third researcher was involved to inspect and validate the coding processes and results. To ensure coding consistency, a detailed and clear description of each MEA category and subcategory along with their examples was obtained from the MEA handbook [4]. Correspondingly, the hybrid values were classified based on the occurrence of characteristics of more than one of the MEA characteristics in a single values Statement. The significance of the hybrid category and its implication for the MEA classification framework is discussed later in this work.

2.4. Details of the WeValue InSitu Crystallization Process in the Field

This research (fieldwork, translation, transcription and analysis of transcripts) was conducted between February 2021 and January 2022. All workshops took place in the local language (Igbo) with a native speaker researcher facilitating, unless English was specifically requested. The workshop sessions were audio-recorded. Informed consent was obtained. Below, we describe the activities which took place but not details of the micro-processes of tacit-to-explicit translation taking place [41], which are complex to explain or perform. Currently, facilitators must be specially trained, but codification of the WeValue InSitu process is underway and manuals under preparation. The four stages of the workshop are contextualization, photo elicitation, triggering and negotiation and framework construction.

Contextualization stage: The participants introduced themselves in the context of their shared or overlapping activities. Brief comments were encouraged about how they interacted with each other, the challenges they faced, and current expectations on future work as a group or individuals in the group.

Photo elicitation–communication stage: The participants were asked to quietly think about what was ‘valuable, meaningful and/or worthwhile’ to them about being involved with the group. They were shown a large number of color photos set out on tables nearby and welcomed to choose 1–2 of them as props to help them communicate their thoughts. They were told no particular meaning was intended in any photo, and they could imply any nuance they wished or even use a blank card to propose their own image. They then shared their thoughts one by one.

Triggering and negotiating meaning stage: The participants read individually through a list of 76 trigger Statements, pre-generated from an earlier round of local key-informant interviews designed for that purpose [1,43]. By asking participants to compare their thoughts to these ‘triggers’, the purpose was to lead them to actively compare and contrast and thus clarify their own bespoke meaning-making and articulation. In cases where participants were not able to read fluently, the trigger list was read out aloud by the facilitator, and participants marked on a ‘Bingo’ sheet those which most appealed or resonated with them. The facilitator then led a discussion around those marked, encouraging thoughts, examples, counter-examples, and, thus, active exchanges between participants to identify topics considered important to them. The facilitator then challenged the words being proposed until a Statement was developed which was generally considered to represent the common shared value, noting any unshared ones of importance. The constructed Statements were written down by participants, and the process was iterated until no further suggestions were nominated.

Framework construction stage and narrative: The participants were invited to arrange the Statements on the table in any manner they wished. Typically, this was with overarching visions at the top (e.g., “we wish to live our life fully as farmers”), foundational characteristics of the individuals at the bottom (e.g., we are always hard working), and the pathways in the middle (we hold family consultation meetings to make big decisions). Participants could still modify, remove, or add Statements. When satisfied with the Framework, participants were asked to verbally present it as if to an outside visitor. This explanation was recorded and transcribed as the narrative.

The natural capability of the process to produce authentic Statements which participants confirm represent them is already established [1,44]. However, time permitting, participants are asked whether “the words are theirs or the researchers”, and/or “whether anything is missing”, and/or “whether they would be happy to let this framework represent them” to their colleagues or outsiders.

3. Results

A total of 23 groups (Table 1) were taken through the WeValue InSitu scaffolded values-crystallization process, and each produced an ‘envelope’ set of bespoke Statements linked in a Framework. They had negotiated and constructed these about what was ‘important’ to their group, with an accompanying narrative to contextualize it to others. For illustration, some of the outputs are shown in Figures. Figure 1 shows that for the VC8 group, Figure 2 for T5, and Figure 3 for VH13.

The convenience samples were chosen to allow inter- and intra-group exploratory comparisons. The nine Village Council groups in Ufuma could be compared to each other and to other Village Committees and to those in Nanka. Ufuma Teachers could be compared to Teachers in another town (Nsukka).

The Statements produced by each group are very useful as concise articulations of what is valued, but the narratives give them important context (this is intended by design). Although the Statements can be extracted for purposes such as proto-indicators for local sustainability indicators [1], for this study, the integrated narrative-plus-Statements datasets are needed. Thematic coding was used with the MEA classifications as analytical framework to identify any Statements relating to ESs, including cultural ES sub-categories. A numerical summary of all such Statements found across all 23 group datasets is given in

Table 2. A summary of the coding results for the shared values Statements from each group by MEA ES types. Fractional values indicate that a Statement spanned more than one category. Numbers are only intended to be indicative as the samples were not representative.

Group	PRV	RGL	CES	Total No. of ES Statements	No. of Other Statements	Total No.
VC1	1.0, 0.5	1.0	0.125, 0.125, 0.125, 0.125	3	11	14
VC2	0.5, 1.0		0.125, 0.125, 0.125, 0.125, 1.0	3	14	17
VC3	0.5, 0.75, 0.75, 0.25, 0.5	1.0	0.125, 0.125, 0.125, 0.125, 0.25, 0.25, 0.25, 0.25, 0.25, 0.25, 0.25,	7	8	15
VC4	0.5, 0.5, 0.75, 0.4, 1.0, 0.75		0.25, 0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 0.25, 0.5	7	10	17
VC5	0.5, 0.5, 0.2		0.5, 0.25, 0.25, 0.5, 0.25, 0.4, 0.4, 0.5, 0.5	5	9	14
VC6	0.5, 0.5		0.25, 0.25, 0.25, 0.25, 0.4, 0.3, 0.3	3	6	9
VC7	1.0, 0.5, 0.5		0.5, 0.25, 0.25	4	6	10
VC8	0.4, 1.0		0.2, 0.2, 0.2	2	6	8
VC9	0.75, 1.0		0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 0.4, 1.0, 0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 0.25	7	0	7
VC10	0.4, 0.4, 0.4	0.5, 0.25, 0.5	0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 0.25, 0.25, 0.25, 0.5, 0.5	6	7	13
VC11		1.0		1	8	9
VY12	0.5, 0.5	0.5	0.5, 0.5, 0.25, 0.75	4	7	11
VH13	0.5, 1.0, 0.5	0.5	0.5	3	8	11
VW14	0.25, 1.0	1.0	0.25, 0.5	3	6	9
T1				0	9	9
T2			0.5, 0.5	1	8	9
T3				0	10	10
T4		0.5	0.25, 0.25	1	7	8
T5		0.5, 0.5	0.25, 0.25, 0.5	2	8	10
T6				0	10	10
T7		0.8	0.2	1	8	9
T8	0.4, 0.5		0.5, 0.5, 0.2, 0.2, 0.2, 0.3, 0.2	3	8	11
T9				0	11	11

, indicating their coded categories. Although none of the data were found to fall outside of the MEA categories, (i.e., the existing categories were sufficient), several were ‘hybrids’ which fitted across two category types (e.g., two Cultural ones, or both Cultural and Provisioning/Regulating). An example is the Statement VC10.7: “We value erosion control work through volunteer activities. [always been the basis for our survival here as a community for thousands of years because erosion is a central issue here]”. The square brackets [1] shows wording provided in the narrative and are inserted to supplement the shorter Statement.

As expected, there were many types of Statements of local shared values besides those referring to ESs, and a few groups of participants (especially teachers) did not have any (Figure 2 and Figure 3). The WeValue InSitu process crystallizes what is important to the assembled group and the context that they set for themselves at the start of it, and thus those interests or practices they have in common are at the center of the Framework of shared values Statements produced. These typically include a range of human values such as commitment or kindness in relationships, good leadership, and expectations from the young, among others. Thus, any ES Statements that are produced will naturally be embedded in a wider context (see Figure 4). This is of particular interest to CES researchers, because valuation of CESs has typically been carried out separately to other local values, and the validity of doing that is questioned.

Figure 4 shows schematics of several produced Frameworks of shared values, with the ES and hybrid (CES-ES) Statements denoted, illustrating their embeddedness within other human-value Statements. The entire dataset of all Statements for all 23 groups can be obtained upon request from the authors, including their coding against MEA ES categories. For illustrative reference, a full set of Statements (ES and non-ES) for several groups can be inspected in Figure 1, Figure 2 and Figure 3 above: they are the ones presented within the narratives.

3.1. Group Comparisons

All of the eleven Village Councils across both towns had provisioning and/or regulating ESs in their Frameworks/Statements. An overview is given in Table 2, and coding for each ES-related Statement of the village councils can be found in Tables S1 and S2 of the Supplementary Materials. Most in Ufuma also mentioned CESs, one in Nanka did (V10), and one did not (V11) (Tables S1 and S2). This indicates that CESs were commonly valued by the Village Councils (in charge of general affairs). Tables S3 and S4 (in the Supplementary Materials) show the pattern of ES values seen across the Women’s, Youth, and Health Committees of Ufuma, and the nine teacher groups. Only around half of the teachers’ groups in both towns nominated values involving provisioning and/or regulating Ess, and only one mentioned any CESs at all (Table S4), which indicates that other shared human values are valued above ESs by the teacher groups.

3.2. Authenticity

Content analysis was carried out on all 23 transcripts for clear, natural Statements concerning the perceived authenticity of the final outputs—the Frameworks of shared values Statements. Many were found, with no counterexamples (Table S5 in the Supplementary Materials), including “these are our own words” and “we just captured everything that we need to say”. These results echo the level of authenticity demonstrated in earlier studies using the WeValue InSitu method.

4. Discussion

4.1. Insights Concerning Classifications of ES Values

The data show that every group has a unique Framework of shared human values, even when they are from the same town and have the same role. This is consistent with values being context-dependent and culturally constructed [23,24,25]. However, the Statements also include many human values in common, and almost all mention at least one ES value. Although most were either Provisioning or Regulating categories, around half of the participants specified Cultural ES values. This suggests that Cultural ESs are sufficiently important to people, relative to other human values in the top set of ‘most important’ things. This is an important outcome as it shows the relative importance of Cultural aspects to Provisioning/Regulating ESs, something not reported in previous studies.

The fact that almost the full range of MEA Cultural sub-categories were identified in the data supports the validity of their range. However, many Statements of shared values produced did not fit within only one CES category, which suggests that their item validity might need reviewing when more empirical data are gathered worldwide. No obvious new CES categories were suggested by the data. However, the fact that several Statements spanned both non-cultural and cultural MEA categories is significant to ES research, because current classification systems separate material and non-material (relational) values, reflecting the ontological basis of ESs in market-based economics and the inability of that economics to provide mechanisms for cultural value. This empirical finding thus reveals a fork in the road for ES research. One path is to continue to develop methods which ‘reveal’ or crystallize authentic values and then to classify them to fit into categories based on historic economics. The other is to hypothesize that human values which underpin modern concepts of sustainability will require new ‘economics’ foundations to represent them: an economics which not only provides domains for ecological as well as financial aspects but which allows intrinsic and relational human values to be taken into account. That path would require elicitation of more data as to ‘what is important’ to people, using their own words and knowledge systems as a basis, and then building up a middle-range theory from it. This could, in principle, produce a pragmatic, predictive approach to valuation not only of ESs but in many areas of sustainability. The generalizability of this path would require more work on the science needed to rigorously link local expressions of shared human values to those represented as universal concepts. We believe this could form the basis of what we see as Group-Level Universal Values-based Economics (GLUVE).

4.2. Who Can Be Engaged to Contribute ES Values Information?

The data shows that Statements about ES values could be elicited from many types of groups (e.g., teachers, councils, youth groups). This is relevant to current ES conversations in the literature and also calls for deeper consideration as to whose values should now be counted [21,22,23] and for the integration of indigenous knowledge [45,46,47]. Previously, it was environmental or development experts who produced information on ES values on behalf of local people who were not thought able to understand the full meaning of the externally generated questions. However, there are now calls that such knowledge be (locally) accountable as it both has attachments to and is valid for the local people [26]. Attempts have been made to find ways to involve non-expert local persons and to use more participatory ways of engaging and tools which could bypass differences in language usage. Nevertheless, critiques have revealed intrinsic difficulties: the photos elicited many things but it was then found that the photos represented very different concepts to the local people than the ‘outsider’ researchers [26], raising questions of face validity [48]. Our use of WeValue InSitu, however, demonstrates that there is no difficulty of involving a range of non-experts (e.g., teachers, health workers, women, and youth) and produces results that are considered authentic (Table S5). They evidence a naturally deep engagement, on a relevant topic, and sharing of experiences [38]. Indices of levels of participation ranging from Denigration (−1) to Participating-as-One (+4) rate WeValue highly at +3, +4 [49] and as capable of outputs reflecting that [50]. The possibility of involving any local participant groups rather than only those with ES expertise breaks new ground in ES practice, and we emphasize that this leads to more accountable ESs. Furthermore, because the final articulations are crystallized or ‘codified’ into articulated Statements comprising more standard, universal language (through a tacit-to-explicit translation), this process could be considered to provide for fusion of local and global knowledge [45].

In these workshops, the Statements were left only roughly articulated, but with more workshop time, they could be much more concise. They could even be directly used as indicators in decision-making tools for land use [1], environmental management [48], environmental education [31], and local-national indices [43].

Our results indicated that our approach to eliciting shared values accommodates a wider range of values from a wider range of stakeholders, allowing for the assimilation of diverse perspectives and values. The concept of representativeness requires a wide array of values, perspectives, and participants to capture the full range of possible human benefits from an ecosystem. O’Connor and Kenter [51] report that diverse stakeholders harbor more than one life frame of values, and approaches are needed that acknowledge and incorporate those different value types in decision-making [24]. Relatedly, Croci et al. [52] advocate for valuation methods that can capture the full range of benefits provided by an ecosystem.

4.3. Work Towards Situated, Integrated, ‘Translated’, Authentic Values

There are calls for situated ES practices which produce situated knowledge [30], and also for ES values to be embedded within an envelope of other types of shared values held. Schnegg et al. [53] proposed a cultural model which could link certain landscape units to particular ES. Our work here uses a broader platform for exploration without imposed landscape, geographical, or any thematic boundaries at all: the group only decides its own boundary as a community of practice. That is, persons with a common practice-based background identify and articulate what is ‘valuable, meaningful, and worthwhile’ to them. This is inherently a situated and holistic, integrated process, whereby those persons explore, identify, and negotiate meaning around their shared practice. Their articulations are constructed in situ, without externally prescribed categories of concepts.

Some critiques of ES studies using deliberative methods (reviewed in [23]) suggest that they modify the existing social constructs of the ES values [28], which our WeValue InSitu approach avoids by instead facilitating participants to construct their own meaning through interaction with each other: new articulations of already-held shared meaning-in-practice. Its micro-processes have been analyzed with Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge Theory [54] to reveal it as a translation/transposition process of tacit into explicit knowledge [41]. This direct linkage of the outputs (Statements of shared values produced) to shared tacit knowledge provides powerful accountability of those Statements and explains how they can be so well situated and appear so highly integrated.

There are relevant current ES studies concerning integration and pluralistic valuations. Pascual et al. [25] advocates for what is termed pluralistic valuation (for NCP). They contrast one-dimensional valuation approaches to pluralistic valuation that involves diverse valuations targeted at biophysical, socio-cultural, health, or economic values of nature. A major difference is that Pascual et al. [25] advocates the use of heterogeneous valuation methods first, and afterwards, an integration of different value foci across domains—which may lead to value trade-offs. Conversely, the WeValue InSitu method used here is an inherently integrated approach that produces these different value dimensions from a single, holistic process. In it, all types of human values (including environmental) which are within the envelope of those of the uppermost level of ‘importance’ to a group are identified, crystallized, and articulated from local experiences, without any need for trade-offs and remaining highly integrated.

4.4. Relevance to Developments with IPBES

Our analysis shows that ecosystem services as defined by the MEA do not fully capture how people assign value to nature in practice. It overlooks the significant meanings and ethical questions of human–non-human relations. In the current IPBES category of instrumental values, the benefits humans derive from nature are represented by linear, unidirectional relationships. Our grounded data show that a large range of nature-based values exist in reality, beyond the current IPBES categories.

In our study, a grounded approach is demonstrated that provides a foundation for understanding the co-production and reciprocity of culture and nature relationships which is vital for understanding the true nature of values [55]. This is in line with the IPBES value pluralism concept stating that valuation methods that only focus on measurements cannot comprehend the shared values of people which are based on place and influenced by their socio-cultural context [56]. The approach we used can also contribute to understanding the relational values, in addition to eliciting and understanding the instrumental values in the IPBES conceptual framework.

In practical terms, the results of this study have far-reaching implications for policy. First, the discovery of categories that extend beyond the normal MEA classifications is an invitation to develop a broader, more inclusive and dynamic framework for valuation which is based on empirical data. Furthermore, the hybrid values discovered imply that strict definitions and boundaries of value types in the MEA framework may be jettisoned for a more fluid description of values. This would involve the development of culturally relevant policy indicators and a possible prioritization of ES management strategies that address hybrid values. Likewise, the successful application of the WeValue process in other areas, like land remediation, climate adaptation, health interventions, and now ecosystem services, positions it as a potential tool of choice in developmental projects. Although the adoption of this tool could be hindered by the time requirement needed for the completion of one workshop, it is important to note that, in more recent WeValue sessions, the training and retraining of the facilitators have contributed to a shortening of the time taken for each workshop to 2–3 h, even for non-literate village groups. This increases the feasibility of scaling the process and using it for regional and global assessments. It has already been found useful in climate adaptation and mitigation [38] and health interventions [40].

4.5. Future Work

Interestingly, the results showed some variation in the categories of ESs across groups. Generalizations cannot be made as the samples are not representative, but indicative trends show that village governance groups had more shared values in Provisioning and Regulating, possibly because of their overarching roles. Teacher group values Statements in all towns were more focused on learning and relationship, which is also aligned to their roles. Although the process intrinsically elicits shared values Frameworks centered on group contexts, and role is significant there, there have been no previous WeValue InSitu studies which reveal these trends. For future studies using WeValue InSitu, it will be necessary to take this inherent group role effect into account when selecting group types. Researchers will need to identify which populations they wish to elicit ES shared values from and then decide if they are looking for quantitative measures (e.g., frequency of values types) or theoretical saturation concept types.

5. Conclusions

This study addresses a crucial ES challenge by developing a valuation approach that can capture valid expressions of intangible benefits derived from ecosystem services from a wide variety of local beneficiaries by using a grounded approach (which is nonetheless applicable in different cultures). This is a significant contribution to ES assessment. For example, for the valuation protocols reported in the IPBES report, our results demonstrate a pathway to produce proto-indicators covering all dimensions, including those typically denoted as ‘intangible dimensions’ of cultural ecosystem services or relational values.

The outputs produced in our approach, i.e., Statements and Frameworks of shared values from the WeValue InSitu process, transcend many previous challenges reported in ES research because they are locally authentic, embedded, and cultural shared values. These ES values are actually elicited within the wider envelope of other local human values: they are situated, integrated, and embedded within them. This result can thus allow rich phenomenological studies of the nature of those ES values and their relation to each other, providing a pathway to future studies of their typology.

Our study shows that the current typology of ES values does indeed need further investigation. The WeValue InSitu approach not only identifies and accommodates the typologies discussed in current conversations (e.g., IPBES report on the diverse values and valuations of nature) but also reveals some which are hybrids between current MEA/CES categories, and which would not be properly represented by them. We thus provide a pathway for developing a more comprehensive values typology, through its grounded approach. This could be used to develop an alternative indicator system extending beyond the traditional economic-based ones, and naturally integrating diverse sustainability factors.

Future work to develop such a holistically comprehensive, more-complete, and empirically grounded typology of shared ES values would increase values consideration uptake in policy making and make those policies more locally acceptable and effective. Our results also demonstrated that the WeValue InSitu approach can capture not only information from the local ‘experts and specialists’ who are currently typically engaged but also the deeply held values of local indigenous groups, including both the educated and less-educated. The Statements are expressed in local terms, and their production is intrinsically situated, accountable, and auditable back to each group type.

In sum, we have demonstrated the principle that there is now a workable approach that can widen the stakeholder group types that can contribute to ES valuations, capturing many shared values that were previously designated as ‘intangible’, and from all types of local people, not just the typically used experts and/or specialists but any local group of lay people. Future work can apply the WeValue InSitu approach to develop more realistic typologies of shared values and to demonstrate scalability and patterns of variations in the results of applications.