SEMINAR: Category Errors in Natural Resource Management Planning � Issues and Solutions

Documenting the contribution of nature to human wellbeing, e.g., as human values or ecosystem services, is critical to the effective management of natural resources. However, problems with classifying desirable end states, including the mixing of means and ends, undermine research, planning and policy applications. Essentially, mixing means and ends is, in philosophical terms, a category error that has important implications for resource management. Although such errors are most damaging in goal-setting and thus decision-making, they also cause numerous related problems in natural resource management. For example, the misuse of system properties – such as sustainability, profitability and resilience – as goals in their own right. The proposed study will address category errors in natural resource management, the issues they raise, and their resolution. Research will focus on biological resources, but other resources will also be considered. This research will be documented through four proposed papers.