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Widespread concerns over the integrity of natural ecosystems worldwide have initiated numerous attempts at developing new tools of monitoring present conditions, assessing future risks and visualizing alternative futures. Reports on the ‘state of the world’abound and so do policy proposals and sustainability strategies. Amidst this plenty of ideas, our ability to reverse the trend and secure a safe, minimum stock of valuable natural capital seems counterproductive. A better understanding of ecosystem dynamics at both the quantitative (biochemical cycling) as well as the qualitative (ecological structure of food webs) levels, without artificial divisions between them, is needed. We also need to understand better the institutional failures leading to a growing number of ‘tragedies of the commons’.

To tackle these challenges appropriately, current environmental management strategies need to'navigate'through an apparent tension: On the one hand they must meet the demand for scientific knowledge-based policy, expressed under the motto'science speaks to policy'. On the other hand, the very same strategies urge for stakeholder involvement and sponsor initiatives to elicit lay-people attitudes, beliefs and visions for the future. This tension seems to reflect the ever lasting stand-off of bottom up and top down approaches. The motivation for this chapter comes from the authors’ uneasiness with the present methodological arsenal in the domain of environmental stakeholder analysis. Previous research on non-market valuation of environmental assets has shown the importance of complementing the neoclassical microeconomic framework of choice in stated …