IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/lauspo/v75y2018icp364-374.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A critical analysis of global ecosystem services (Paristhitiki sewa) discourse in Nepal

Author

Listed:
  • Chaudhary, Sunita
  • McGregor, Andrew

Abstract

‘Ecosystem services’ (ES) is a globalising concept that is being incorporated into environmental policies around the world. It is particularly advanced in Western nations which were active in developing the concept, but less applied in non-Western contexts. In this paper, we explore how the ecosystem services concept is being promoted and interpreted in the context of Nepal. We conducted a content analysis of environmental policies, peer-reviewed articles and media coverage, as well as in-depth interviews with key stakeholders. The findings show that the concept is being increasingly integrated into environmental policy documents and is likely to become influential. International actors are most responsible for supporting the concept in Nepal, primarily through funding projects, shaping the way ecosystem services concept is understood and articulated in the country. ES is primarily constructed in terms of economic valuation and payments for ecosystem services, in particular for forest and water services. The paper discusses the risks that have been associated with the commodification of ecosystem services in the broader literature, such as over extraction of resources, inequitable outcomes, and the marginalisation of intangible benefits that cannot easily be monetarily valued. The study argues that rather than complying with international agendas, a more comprehensive approach to ecosystem services that defines the scope of the concept, the risks and benefits associated with it and contextualises ecosystem services within national priorities and issues is needed in Nepal.

Suggested Citation

  • Chaudhary, Sunita & McGregor, Andrew, 2018. "A critical analysis of global ecosystem services (Paristhitiki sewa) discourse in Nepal," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 364-374.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:75:y:2018:i:c:p:364-374
    DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.03.024
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837717310979
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.03.024?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chaudhary, Sunita & McGregor, Andrew & Houston, Donna & Chettri, Nakul, 2018. "Environmental justice and ecosystem services: A disaggregated analysis of community access to forest benefits in Nepal," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 29(PA), pages 99-115.
    2. Birch, Jennifer C. & Thapa, Ishana & Balmford, Andrew & Bradbury, Richard B. & Brown, Claire & Butchart, Stuart H.M. & Gurung, Hum & Hughes, Francine M.R. & Mulligan, Mark & Pandeya, Bhopal & Peh, Kel, 2014. "What benefits do community forests provide, and to whom? A rapid assessment of ecosystem services from a Himalayan forest, Nepal," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 8(C), pages 118-127.
    3. Iversen, Vegard & Chhetry, Birka & Francis, Paul & Gurung, Madhu & Kafle, Ghanendra & Pain, Adam & Seeley, Janet, 2006. "High value forests, hidden economies and elite capture: Evidence from forest user groups in Nepal's Terai," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 93-107, June.
    4. Rajesh Kumar Rai & Mani Nepal & Priya Shyamsundar & Laxmi Dutt Bhatta, "undated". "Demand for Watershed Services: Understanding Local Preferences through a Choice Experiment in the Koshi Basin of Nepal," Working papers 89, The South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics.
    5. Pandeya, B. & Buytaert, W. & Zulkafli, Z. & Karpouzoglou, T. & Mao, F. & Hannah, D.M., 2016. "A comparative analysis of ecosystem services valuation approaches for application at the local scale and in data scarce regions," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 22(PB), pages 250-259.
    6. Jiang, Wei, 2017. "Ecosystem services research in China: A critical review," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 26(PA), pages 10-16.
    7. Norgaard, Richard B., 2010. "Ecosystem services: From eye-opening metaphor to complexity blinder," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(6), pages 1219-1227, April.
    8. McDonough, Kelsey & Hutchinson, Stacy & Moore, Trisha & Hutchinson, J.M. Shawn, 2017. "Analysis of publication trends in ecosystem services research," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 82-88.
    9. Hansen, Rieke & Frantzeskaki, Niki & McPhearson, Timon & Rall, Emily & Kabisch, Nadja & Kaczorowska, Anna & Kain, Jaan-Henrik & Artmann, Martina & Pauleit, Stephan, 2015. "The uptake of the ecosystem services concept in planning discourses of European and American cities," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 12(C), pages 228-246.
    10. Bull, J.W. & Jobstvogt, N. & Böhnke-Henrichs, A. & Mascarenhas, A. & Sitas, N. & Baulcomb, C. & Lambini, C.K. & Rawlins, M. & Baral, H. & Zähringer, J. & Carter-Silk, E. & Balzan, M.V. & Kenter, J.O, 2016. "Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats: A SWOT analysis of the ecosystem services framework," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 99-111.
    11. Sharma, Bikash & Rasul, Golam & Chettri, Nakul, 2015. "The economic value of wetland ecosystem services: Evidence from the Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve, Nepal," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 12(C), pages 84-93.
    12. Maczka, Krzysztof & Matczak, Piotr & Pietrzyk-Kaszyńska, Agata & Rechciński, Marcin & Olszańska, Agnieszka & Cent, Joanna & Grodzińska-Jurczak, Małgorzata, 2016. "Application of the ecosystem services concept in environmental policy—A systematic empirical analysis of national level policy documents in Poland," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 169-176.
    13. Primmer, Eeva & Furman, Eeva, 2012. "Operationalising ecosystem service approaches for governance: Do measuring, mapping and valuing integrate sector-specific knowledge systems?," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 85-92.
    14. Dil B. Khatri & Thuy Thu Pham & Monica Di Gregorio & Rahul Karki & Naya S. Paudel & Maria Brockhaus & Ramesh Bhushal, 2016. "REDD+ politics in the media: a case from Nepal," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 138(1), pages 309-323, September.
    15. Dawson, Neil & Martin, Adrian, 2015. "Assessing the contribution of ecosystem services to human wellbeing: A disaggregated study in western Rwanda," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 62-72.
    16. Chaudhary, Sunita & McGregor, Andrew & Houston, Donna & Chettri, Nakul, 2018. "Reprint of: Environmental justice and ecosystem services: A disaggregated analysis of community access to forest benefits in Nepal," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 29(PB), pages 316-332.
    17. Andrew McGregor & Edward Challies & Peter Howson & Rini Astuti & Rowan Dixon & Bethany Haalboom & Michael Gavin & Luca Tacconi & Suraya Afiff, 2015. "Beyond Carbon, More Than Forest? REDD+ Governmentality in Indonesia," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 47(1), pages 138-155, January.
    18. Schleyer, Christian & Görg, Christoph & Hauck, Jennifer & Winkler, Klara Johanna, 2015. "Opportunities and challenges for mainstreaming the ecosystem services concept in the multi-level policy-making within the EU," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 174-181.
    19. Paudyal, Kiran & Baral, Himlal & Burkhard, Benjamin & Bhandari, Santosh P. & Keenan, Rodney J., 2015. "Participatory assessment and mapping of ecosystem services in a data-poor region: Case study of community-managed forests in central Nepal," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 13(C), pages 81-92.
    20. Rai, Rajesh Kumar & Shyamsundar, Priya & Nepal, Mani & Bhatta, Laxmi Dutt, 2015. "Differences in demand for watershed services: Understanding preferences through a choice experiment in the Koshi Basin of Nepal," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 274-283.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mohan Kumar Rai & Basanta Paudel & Yili Zhang & Pashupati Nepal & Narendra Raj Khanal & Linshan Liu & Raju Rai, 2023. "Appraisal of Empirical Studies on Land-Use and Land-Cover Changes and Their Impact on Ecosystem Services in Nepal Himalaya," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-19, April.
    2. Ali Akbar Jamali & Ramin Tabatabaee & Timothy O. Randhir, 2021. "Ecotourism and socioeconomic strategies for Khansar River watershed of Iran," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(11), pages 17077-17093, November.
    3. Tugjamba, Navchaa & Walkerden, Greg, 2021. "Traditional and modern ecosystem services thinking in nomadic Mongolia: Framing differences, common concerns, and ways forward," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    4. Aryal, Kishor & Ojha, Bhuwan Raj & Maraseni, Tek, 2021. "Perceived importance and economic valuation of ecosystem services in Ghodaghodi wetland of Nepal," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ram Prasad Acharya & Tek Narayan Maraseni & Geoff Cockfield, 2020. "An Ecosystem Services Valuation Research Framework for Policy Integration in Developing Countries: A Case Study from Nepal," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(19), pages 1-15, October.
    2. Valencia Torres, Angélica & Tiwari, Chetan & Atkinson, Samuel F., 2021. "Progress in ecosystem services research: A guide for scholars and practitioners," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    3. Maczka, Krzysztof & Chmielewski, Piotr & Jeran, Agnieszka & Matczak, Piotr & van Riper, Carena J., 2019. "The ecosystem services concept as a tool for public participation in management of Poland’s Natura 2000 network," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 173-183.
    4. Stępniewska, Małgorzata & Lupa, Piotr & Mizgajski, Andrzej, 2018. "Drivers of the ecosystem services approach in Poland and perception by practitioners," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 33(PA), pages 59-67.
    5. Keenan, Rodney J. & Pozza, Greg & Fitzsimons, James A., 2019. "Ecosystem services in environmental policy: Barriers and opportunities for increased adoption," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 1-1.
    6. Acharya, Ram Prasad & Maraseni, Tek & Cockfield, Geoff, 2020. "Assessing the financial contribution and carbon emission pattern of provisioning ecosystem services in Siwalik forests in Nepal: Valuation from the perspectives of disaggregated users," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    7. Brück, Maria & Abson, David J. & Fischer, Joern & Schultner, Jannik, 2022. "Broadening the scope of ecosystem services research: Disaggregation as a powerful concept for sustainable natural resource management," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    8. Rajesh K. Rai & Mani Nepal & Laxmi D. Bhatta & Saudamini Das & Madan S. Khadayat & E. Somanathan & Kedar Baral, 2019. "Ensuring Water Availability to Water Users through Incentive Payment for Ecosystem Services Scheme: A Case Study in a Small Hilly Town of Nepal," Water Economics and Policy (WEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 5(04), pages 1-26, October.
    9. Murali, Ranjini & Suryawanshi, Kulbushansingh & Redpath, Stephen & Nagendra, Harini & Mishra, Charudutt, 2019. "Changing use of ecosystem services along a rural-urban continuum in the Indian Trans-Himalayas," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    10. Kieslich, Marcus & Salles, Jean-Michel, 2021. "Implementation context and science-policy interfaces: Implications for the economic valuation of ecosystem services," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    11. van den Belt, Marjan & Stevens, Sharon M., 2016. "Transformative agenda, or lost in the translation? A review of top-cited articles in the first four years of Ecosystem Services," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 22(PA), pages 60-72.
    12. Mohan Kumar Rai & Basanta Paudel & Yili Zhang & Pashupati Nepal & Narendra Raj Khanal & Linshan Liu & Raju Rai, 2023. "Appraisal of Empirical Studies on Land-Use and Land-Cover Changes and Their Impact on Ecosystem Services in Nepal Himalaya," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(9), pages 1-19, April.
    13. Schetke, Sophie & Lee, Heera & Graf, Wanda & Lautenbach, Sven, 2018. "Application of the ecosystem service concept for climate protection in Germany," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 29(PB), pages 294-305.
    14. Adam Pártl & David Vačkář & Blanka Loučková & Eliška Krkoška Lorencová, 2017. "A spatial analysis of integrated risk: vulnerability of ecosystem services provisioning to different hazards in the Czech Republic," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 89(3), pages 1185-1204, December.
    15. Cuni-Sanchez, Aida & Ngute, Alain Senghor K. & Sonké, Bonaventure & Sainge, Moses Nsanyi & Burgess, Neil D. & Klein, Julia A. & Marchant, Rob, 2019. "The importance of livelihood strategy and ethnicity in forest ecosystem services’ perceptions by local communities in north-western Cameroon," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    16. Xiaoping Zhou & Lan Yang & Xiaokun Gu & Lufa Zhang & Li Li, 2022. "Scarcity Value Assessment of Ecosystem Services Based on Changes in Supply and Demand: A Case Study of the Yangtze River Delta City Cluster, China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(19), pages 1-20, September.
    17. Rall, Emily Lorance & Kabisch, Nadja & Hansen, Rieke, 2015. "A comparative exploration of uptake and potential application of ecosystem services in urban planning," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 16(C), pages 230-242.
    18. Friedman, Rachel S. & Wilson, Kerrie A. & Rhodes, Jonathan R. & Law, Elizabeth A., 2022. "What does equitable distribution mean in community forests?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    19. Bryan, Brett A. & Ye, Yanqiong & Zhang, Jia'en & Connor, Jeffery D., 2018. "Land-use change impacts on ecosystem services value: Incorporating the scarcity effects of supply and demand dynamics," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 32(PA), pages 144-157.
    20. Baral, Himlal & Guariguata, Manuel R. & Keenan, Rodney J., 2016. "A proposed framework for assessing ecosystem goods and services from planted forests," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 22(PB), pages 260-268.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:75:y:2018:i:c:p:364-374. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joice Jiang (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/land-use-policy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.