Cultural ecosystem services (CES) – or the non-material benefits that result from human relationships with the environment – support and maintain place-based values, worldviews, cultural identity, and well-being. Given their potential to reveal relationships between human and environmental well-being, the inclusion of CES in natural resource planning and decision making processes is critical to successful long-term application of stewardship and management strategies. Despite being one of four main categories of ecosystem services, CES are not often assessed due to a range of theoretical and practical gaps in identification and evaluation methods.

This project addressed the need to fill these knowledge gaps by establishing a sustainable network of CES practitioners that support each other, engage others through their CES experiences, and share approaches for identifying and working within the unique socio-ecological contexts present across the Reserve System. In this webinar, the project team will showcase three examples from their new Resource Guide that highlight how Reserves have engaged with CES across all sectors through internship and fellowship experiences, research protocols, and evaluation.

Please note: The duration of this webinar has been extended by 15 minutes to accommodate additional Q&A time at the end of the session.