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(FULL LETTER) Kirchhoff (2019) calls for the abandonment of the concept “cultural ecosystem services” (CES) within the larger ecosystem service (ES) framework, based on the meaning and interpretation of its name and more specifically that of its separate words “cultural”, “ecosystem” and “services”. However, it is important to distinguish name from concept (accompanied by a description) when judging. Descriptions of ES and CES in literature, especially those of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) report, are arguably broader than the meaning of the separate words that constitute their names. In the respective report, ES are described as “the benefits people obtain from ecosystems” which covers all types of benefits including CES. CES are described in the report as entailing “recreational, aesthetic, and spiritual benefits” and including among else “spiritual and religious values” and “aesthetic values”. By extension, the same issue is also occurring for the name swapping of “ecosystem services” (ES) into “nature’s contribution to people”. Of course, one can argue that a somewhat new concept is considered but this seems not the case, given the all-inclusiveness of the (cultural) ecosystem service concept (Braat, 2018; Maes et al., 2018). Moreover, from a general perspective, two aspects appear to be crucial to judge a name that is based on the combination of different existing words (e.g. CES): (a) the logic of the wording itself to cover the object or concept (the logic aspect) and (b) agreement on and acceptance of that wording as the name for that object or concept (the conventionality aspect). Of course, a logic combination may facilitate acceptance and usage, but they are still separate aspects to some extent. The arguments of Kirchhoff (2019) focus on the logic aspect. A core argument in his work is that a natural-scientific definition of “ecosystem” means that it can only be perceived in an objectifying manner, excluding any cultural services. These matters are not mutually exclusive. Otherwise, anything that is described physically cannot be associated with or have subjective perceptions or experience. Concerning “services”, Kirchhoff (2019) raises the point that the word service implies a lack in coverage of collective non-preference based anthropocentric values, which seems to contradict the fact that anthropocentric implies a preference towards humans and is defined at a species-level, namely human kind, and not an individual level. Nevertheless, the issues raised concerning “services” or “cultural” do not necessarily call for the abandonment of CES in its totality. In addition to the theoretical aspect, Kirchhoff (2019) seems to disregard the conventionality aspect of a name for a concept. ES and CES are far from novel wording. Currently these names, and related concepts, seem to gain traction with society at large, and at this stage, changing to other names might be unconstructive, costly and inefficient for public dialogue and consideration of the associated concepts. Focusing solely on theoretical arguments, names might otherwise continuously be changed based on new insights or other interpretations. At least we should strive to minimally change the name. For example, we could replace “cultural” by “non-material” as Kirchhoff (2019) mentions, but this can be questioned. Such a name change should though not be encouraged if it might be practically too complex or if it is not peer-approved by the community. Based on these arguments, I question the conclusions of Kirchhoff (2019). Instead, the arguments of Kirchhoff (2019) could alternatively be used to better grasp the concept and ameliorate the assessment of CES. Acknowledgments I thank Rudolf De Groot, Leon Braat, Jasper Kenter and Joachim Maes for helpful reflections on an earlier version of this letter. References Braat, L.C., 2018. Five reasons why the Science publication “Assessing nature’s contributions to people” (Diaz et al. 2018) would not have been accepted in Ecosystem Services. Ecosyst. Serv. 30, A1–A2. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2018.02.002 Kirchhoff, T., 2019. Abandoning the Concept of Cultural Ecosystem Services, or Against Natural–Scientific Imperialism. BioScience. https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biz007 Maes, J., Burkhard, B., Geneletti, D., 2018. Ecosystem services are inclusive and deliver multiple values. A comment on the concept of nature’s contributions to people. One Ecosyst. 3, e24720. https://doi.org/10.3897/oneeco.3.e24720 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005. Ecosystems and human well-being: synthesis. Island Press, Washington, D.C. (2019-08-01)
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