Cooperative Agreement for CESU-affiliated Partner with Pacific Northwest Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit

The US Geological Survey is offering a funding opportunity to a CESU partner for research on cultural ecosystem services assessment in the Salmon River Basin (SRB), Idaho. The SRB contains minerals that are presently in high demand due to the energy transition, which is increasing development pressure in the basin. Legacy mining is being reactivated, new mines have opened, and more are in various stages of exploration and permitting. The SRB is mostly under federal ownership and managed by the U.S. Forest Service; it is renowned for its recreational activities, notably those related to its federally designated wilderness and wild and scenic rivers, and its cultural importance for subsistence hunting and fishing by the Nez Perce and Shoshone-Bannock Tribes. These and other values important in the SRB are commonly characterized as cultural ecosystem services - the non-material benefits that people obtain from ecosystems. They are culturally very important, but their value is not easily or appropriately monetized and as a result they are rarely accounted for quantitatively in environmental assessments. The overarching goal of the project is to develop spatial information about the intensity of social values for these ecosystem services such that they can be considered in the context of mineral development proposals, environmental impact assessments, and other resource management decisions.