When People and Place Connect

NERRA has launched a new cultural ecosystem services web page. It offers tools, case studies, and stories to help Reserves and their partners integrate place-based, cultural values into estuary education, research, planning, and stewardship programs. 

Cultural ecosystem services (CES) are those less tangible but deeply felt benefits that estuaries provide to coastal residents: the shimmer of twilight on tidal flats, the excitement of catching a fish with your child, the calm of listening to the wind at the water’s edge. The web page and the resources it provides grew out of work supported by a NERRS Science Collaborative grant, which enabled Reserves and partners to explore how to recognize, measure, and integrate CES into everyday practice.

“Our goal was to demonstrate how these cultural values can be honored in decision-making,” said Rachel Dacks, project lead and assistant professor at the University of Hawaiʻi. “This project helped us understand how to recognize and document those characteristics of estuaries that people truly care about and then demonstrate how Reserve programs can use that information to support the wellbeing and identity of the people who live in these places.”

Drawing from existing ways CES are woven into Reserve programming, the project team created a toolbox of lessons, case studies, and other resources that can be used by any Reserve or their partners. At the Heʻeia Reserve, for example, weekly Laulima Days connect students and community members through shared stewardship practices carried forward since time immemorial. At Alaska’s Kachemak Bay Reserve, educators are weaving art and culture into estuary learning to make science more accessible and inspiring. At the Tijuana River Reserve, a Davidson Fellow is advancing research on how cultural identity can shape access to coastal resources. 

Reserves also piloted new tools for identifying CES across their landscapes—from mapping ceremonies and traditions to documenting the values associated with recreation, inspiration, and cultural heritage. Others developed research protocols to ensure projects are grounded in local values and reciprocal relationships. At Maine’s Wells Reserve, a recent survey highlighted the importance of CES in recruiting and retaining volunteers.

“The survey made it clear that this work gives people joy, peace, and a stronger connection to this place and the people around them,” says Lynne Benoit-Vachon, volunteer and visitor services director at the Wells Reserve.

“Cultural ecosystem services figure heavily in those positive feelings; people enjoy being outside in nature, supporting conservation of this beautiful place, and working alongside others for the Reserve. Volunteers are vital to our mission, and it’s important we understand what brings them here, time and time again.”

Together, these efforts signal a System-wide shift: engaging with CES is a way to strengthen partnerships, broaden participation, and make conservation more relevant to the everyday lives of coastal residents and visitors. 

“By understanding cultural ecosystem services, Reserves can ensure their work supports not only what their communities care about most today, but also those cultural and personal connections practices that have tied people to these places for generations,” said Rebecca Roth, executive director of the National Estuarine Research Reserve Association. 

“The result of this highly localized focus is that the Reserves strengthen their role as trusted partners in caring for the coast.”