title: Evaluating taboo trade-offs in ecosystems services and human well-being.
abstract: Managing ecosystems for multiple ecosystem services and balancing the well-being of diverse stakeholders involves different kinds of trade-offs. Often trade-offs involve noneconomic and difficult-to-evaluate values, such as cultural identity, employment, the well-being of poor people, or particular species or ecosystem structures. Although trade-offs need to be considered for successful environmental management, they are often overlooked in favor of win-wins. Management and policy decisions demand approaches that can explicitly acknowledge and evaluate diverse trade-offs. We identified a diversity of apparent trade-offs in a small-scale tropical fishery when ecological simulations were integrated with participatory assessments of social-ecological system structure and stakeholders' well-being. Despite an apparent win-win between conservation and profitability at the aggregate scale, food production, employment, and well-being of marginalized stakeholders were differentially influenced by management decisions leading to trade-offs. Some of these trade-offs were suggested to be "taboo" trade-offs between morally incommensurable values, such as between profits and the well-being of marginalized women. These were not previously recognized as management issues. Stakeholders explored and deliberated over trade-offs supported by an interactive "toy model" representing key system trade-offs, alongside qualitative narrative scenarios of the future. The concept of taboo trade-offs suggests that psychological bias and social sensitivity may exclude key issues from decision making, which can result in policies that are difficult to implement. Our participatory modeling and scenarios approach has the potential to increase awareness of such trade-offs, promote discussion of what is acceptable, and potentially identify and reduce obstacles to management compliance.
authors.affiliation: Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden; School of International Development, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, United Kingdom; tim.daw@su.se.
authors.forename: Tim M
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6635-9153
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Daw
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Sciences and Languages, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST, United Kingdom;
authors.forename: Sarah
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Coulthard
authors.affiliation: Nippon Foundation-University of British Columbia Nereus Program, Fisheries Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4; School of Environment, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, United Kingdom;
authors.forename: William W L
authors.initials: WW
authors.lastname: Cheung
authors.affiliation: Environment and Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter, Penryn TR10 9EF, United Kingdom;
authors.forename: Katrina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Brown
authors.affiliation: Marine Program, Wildlife Conservation Society, 80100 Mombasa, Kenya;
authors.forename: Caroline
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Abunge
authors.affiliation: Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden;
authors.forename: Diego
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Galafassi
authors.affiliation: Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden;
authors.forename: Garry D
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Peterson
authors.affiliation: Marine Program, Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, NY 10460;
authors.forename: Tim R
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: McClanahan
authors.affiliation: Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute, 80100 Mombasa, Kenya; and.
authors.forename: Johnstone O
authors.initials: JO
authors.lastname: Omukoto
authors.affiliation: Independent Governance Consultant, Basingstoke RG21 3DB, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Lydiah
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Munyi
mesh_terms: D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D057894:Coral Reefs; D017753:Ecosystem; D005398:Fisheries / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007630:Kenya; D018803:Models, Economic; D012945:Social Values; D012946:Social Welfare / Q000191:economics* / Q000941:ethics
keywords: coral reef fisheries; ecosystem-based management; gender; participatory modeling; scenarios