Stories of Country: Representing Indigenous cultural values in environmental economic accounting

Abstract

Environmental economic accounting frameworks are increasingly vital for valuing ecosystems like blue carbon coastal wetlands and informing their restoration and management. However, existing frameworks often struggle to represent the holistic and interconnected cultural values held by Indigenous peoples. The reductionist approach of categorisation can obscure critical links and underestimate restoration benefits. This paper presents a method for identifying, mapping, and analysing Indigenous cultural values and their interconnections, demonstrated through a co-designed case study on Mandingalbay Yidinji Country in Far North Queensland, focusing on a twenty-year coastal wetland restoration project. Data were collected from interviews, workshops, site visits, and desktop sources, coded into pre-agreed cultural value domains, triangulated across sources, and validated with community leaders. Our findings, once synthesised, were then presented in the form of stories and relayed as a culturally appropriate way to communicate these findings. Our analysis revealed that cultural values were highly interconnected, with stories linking aspects of identity, stewardship, and wellbeing. To better capture these values, we suggest including “Wellbeing services” and “Stewardship services” as additional categories to the System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA) framework. We also demonstrate how assessing the increase in connectivity between cultural values offers a metric for representing the relational impact of restoration. The documentation and analysis of cultural data and then dissemination of results via stories, enriches environmental accounts, and better accommodate diverse Indigenous worldviews, providing richer insights for policy and management of vital coastal ecosystems globally.