Ecological restoration, functionalities, uses and ecological services

The ecosystem services frame is often used as a reference to justify public actions or policies, or to assess their outcomes. However, its utilitarian approach, like that of nature-based solutions, raises questions and has limits.

Objectives

The REFUSE consortium aims at identifying relevant interdisciplinary research questions about the uses and limits of utilitarian and anthropocentric approaches (services, solutions) applied to landscapes and waterscapes restoration. What are the ecological functionalities poorly taken into account in the ecosystem services approach, what are the socio-political presuppositions this approach conveys, and with what kind of consequences? The REFUSE consortium also aims at better understanding how, in practice, the implementation of ecosystems restoration projects, when justified by the utilitarian ecosystem services approach, leads to excluding specific social groups or ecological functionalities. The main hypothesis is that, when facing situations of crisis (hydrological extremes, epizootic diseases, pollutions), the utilitarian approach is not enough to prevent or sanction practices that have significant negative impacts on ecosystems,  and to design systems that are resilient or resistant to climate change or to significant changes in land or water uses.

Approach

The consortium has organized three meetings to discuss, based on empiric examples, how utilitarian approaches can lead managers, funding agencies and stakeholders to overlook certain ecological and socio-economic dimensions, and to design less resilient objectives for the management of ecosystems and their biodiversity. After clarifying various terms and concepts used when mobilizing the utilitarian approach, its blind spots and shortcomings have been highlighted, thanks to contributions from sociology and functional ecology. These blind spots were then debated in order to design new integrative frameworks able to overcome the limits of the utilitarian approach.

INRAE Research units

• LISIS Joint Research Unit - interdisciplinary research laboratory and innovation in societies
• RiverLy – Interdisciplinary Research Unit for the management and restoration of river systems and their catchements
• Département AQUA
  • GESTE Joint Research Unit - territorial management of water and environment
  • EABX Research Unit – Aquatic Ecosystems and Global Change
• Département ECODIV
  • BIOGECO Joint Research Unit - Biodiversity, genetic and communities
• Département ECOSOCIO
  • CESAER – Joint Research Unit - center of economics and sociology applied to agriculture and rural areas
  • ETTIS – Research Unit -Environment, territories in transition, infrastructures, societies

External partnerships

• OFB