Assessing Multiple Values of Nature in National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans: Coded Data

We coded eleven National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) for the human values for nature (instrumental, instrinsic, and relational) expressed in the NBSAPs. The 11 country NBSAPs coded were: Angola, Australia, Bhutan, Czech Republic, Egypt, Germany, Guyana, Malaysia, Russia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Turkey. Each sentence, defined as an orthographic unit beginning with a capital letter and ending with a full stop, was provided a value code (instrumental, intrinsic, relational, unspecified, ‘not value orientation statement', or uncertain) depending on the value orientation of the statement. Coding criteria for each code is given below: 

Code

Description

Instrumental

●       Nature is described as valuable or useful for humans ends

●       Mentions of provisioning services, regulating services, economic benefits, natural capital, stocks and harvests, use of nature (tourism/recreation was tagged as instrumental unless an explicit relational aspect mentioned)

Intrinsic

●       Nature is described as valuable regardless of humans

●       Nature is valuable for natural (nonhuman) ends (e.g., forests must be preserved as habitats for animals)

●       Nature as having a right to exist undisturbed by humans

Relational

●       Meaningful relationships with nature

●       Links between nature and culture, identity, traditions, traditional knowledge, fairness, environmental justice and rights, sharing, future generations, heritage, responsibilities, human beings as a part of nature, and quality of life

●       References to personified nature (e.g. “Mother Earth”)

Unspecified

●       Value or importance of nature is implied, but no direct link to instrumental, intrinsic, or relational values (e.g., “our coastal and marine areas house important ecosystems”; “we have safeguarded all our key ecosystems, species and genetic diversity”)

Not value orientation statement

●       Sentence does not imply value, or value statement does not link to nature. Purely biophysical language that is only descriptive (e.g., “There are an estimated 15,000 species of plants in the country”).

For a detailed overview of the methods, please refer the paper published in People and Nature.