INSIGHTS
P OLICY FORUM
S OCIAL SCIENCE
Methods for assessing social and cultural losses
Compensation for damages can and should address social and cultural impacts
By Robin Gregory1,2,3, Philip Halteman4,
Nicole Kaechele3,5, Terre Satterfield3
R
ecent decades have seen a sharp rise
in public discontent, activism, and
court cases regarding how social and
cultural consequences of past events
(e.g., the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
in the United States) or on-going
and proposed developments (e.g., the Trans
Mountain oil pipeline expansion in western
Canada) are assessed. Such assessments
of terrestrial or marine impacts influence
478 4 AUGUST 2023 • VOL 381 ISSUE 6657
both mitigation actions (to reduce adverse
impacts) and compensation payments (to
address remaining losses). Our collabora-
tive experiences over several decades with
Indigenous and non-Indigenous partners,
community members, and decision-mak-
ers in the United States and Canada have
made clear the need to broaden the ana-
lyst’s toolkit and, in turn, the information
that reaches decision-makers. This requires
assessment methods that link principles to
practice and can aid community and state
decision-makers in determining the full
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PHOTO: JASON FRANSON/THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP IMAGES
range of impacts, including not only eco-
nomic and environmental effects but also
the social, cultural, and psychological im-
pacts associated with an action.
There is a commonly held public percep-
tion, supported by results of a national sur-
vey, that decisions made by public officials
about large projects often fail to adequately
account for many impacts that lack mon-
etary measures (1). We give particular at-
tention to the distinction between tangible
impacts such as changes in jobs, revenues,
or environmental emissions, which can be
science.org SCIENCE
Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs who oppose the
Coastal GasLink pipeline take part in a rally
in Smithers, British Columbia, Canada, in 2020.
enumerated and monetized, and intangi-
ble impacts to cultural practices and sites,
social relations, or mental health, which,
despite their importance, are not typically
measured in monetary terms.
The goal of monetary compensation is
to provide a “fair” level of redress (i.e., to
“make as whole as possible” the adverse ef-
fects of an action) consistent with the se-
verity, magnitude, and duration of losses
(2). When land has been developed in ir-
reversible ways and thus full restitution is
not possible, this goal is only aspirational
or symbolic: Monetary payments alone can-
not fully offset losses experienced by an
affected community over many decades.
Nevertheless, compensation can bring ad-
ditional funds to a community as well as
provide public acknowledgment of certain
rights, experienced damages, and the trans-
gressor’s fault (3).
Though the issues and approaches we
describe are applicable in many contexts,
we illustrate them below with a focus on
Indigenous communities, for whom the
neglect of social and cultural losses in as-
sessments of compensation is of particular
concern. This neglect also violates the 2007
United Nations Declaration on the Rights
of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which
affirmed the preexisting inherent rights
of the more than 476 million Indigenous
people around the world (4), including
rights to compensation for loss or degrada-
tion of lands, territories, and resources. Yet
fulfilling this right is problematic, in part
because of systemic racism and colonial-
ism and in part because of shortcomings
in methods used to identify, evaluate, and
seek redress for damages. These method-
ological failures exist despite the respon-
sibility of assessments to be responsive to
the welfare of all citizens and acknowledg-
ments by federal or regional governments
of the rights held by, and fiduciary duties
owed to, Indigenous peoples.
Although impact assessment methods
have become more inclusive over recent
decades (5), many of the analytic advances
have not yet been brought into quantitative
assessments of payments for social, cultural,
governance, and other intangible losses
(6), thereby biasing recommendations for
mitigation, compensation, and decision-
1
Decision Research, Eugene, OR, USA. 2Choiceworks Ltd.,
Halfmoon Bay, BC, Canada. 3Institute for Resources,
Environment and Sustainability, University of British Columbia,
Vancouver, BC, Canada. 4Compass Resource Management,
Vancouver, BC, Canada. 5RIO Project Management, Vancouver,
BC, Canada. Email: robin.gregory@ires.ubc.ca
SCIENCE science.org
making. We collaborated with social science
colleagues and both leaders and members
of many Indigenous communities (7) to de-
velop a mixed-method approach for calcu-
lating compensation payments for damages
resulting from initiatives such as resource
developments (e.g., open-pit mines), expro-
priation of lands (e.g., for industrial uses),
or environmental accidents (e.g., offshore
oil spills).
This approach uses techniques based in
economic theory to quantify net losses over
time that can sensibly be estimated in dol-
lar terms. But where those techniques fall
short—because the impacts in question af-
fect intangible values typically not thought
about in terms of a monetary exchange—we
use methods based in multi-attribute utility
theory and decision analysis (8), Indigenous
methodologies (9), and behavioral decision
research (10) to estimate relative dollar
amounts for net losses to intangible val-
ues. This combination of methods at least
partially overcomes the ethical and practi-
cal limits of the usual one-size-fits-all ap-
proach that accommodates only like-for-
like (or, at best, like-for-proxy) comparisons
and assessments. By contrast, we propose
a mixed-method approach for assessing
social and cultural losses that acknowl-
edges and preserves the distinctiveness of
tangible and intangible values and enables
fair, robust, and transparent like-for-unlike
comparisons when required by a specific le-
gal or other context.
METHODOLOGICAL REQUIREMENTS
Every Indigenous community has its own
system of governance and legal orders, and
every classification of impacts will differ
with respect to its nature, history, magni-
tude, severity, and time period. That said,
our experience suggests that the accuracy
and defensibility of compensation efforts
that seek to recognize and help restore
experienced intangible as well as tangible
losses depends on seven key principles (11)
(see the box).
Identify multiple dimensions of impact
A defensible valuation of net impacts over
time (gains minus losses) must recognize
and formally incorporate the multiple di-
mensions of valued qualities of life that
have been affected, including not only eco-
nomic, physical health, and environmental
considerations but also impacts to cultural,
nonphysical health, social, and governance
systems. Implementing this usually re-
quires considerable time—dozens of in-
terviews, multiple trips to sites, frequent
check-ins with community leadership, and
extensive reviews of ethnographic and oral-
historical records—to gain a comprehensive
understanding of the nature, magnitude,
and duration of losses experienced over the
period in question, which often spans sev-
eral decades.
Helpful work has been done in related
compensation contexts (e.g., the 1986 Exxon
Valdez and 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil
spills) (12). However, in most cases, the iden-
tification of social and cultural values either
has focused on individual losses related
to economic and environmental services,
thereby missing many place-based commu-
nity relationships and governance systems,
or was reported as part of a stand-alone
report whose findings were not integrated
into the summary quantitative analyses of
impacts considered by decision-makers.
In our work with Indigenous Nations, we
find that the different categories of loss are
often interwoven, reflecting the classifica-
tions consistent with Indigenous knowl-
edge with respect to their land- or marine-
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based economies. Although clarifying such
interconnected impacts can be challenging,
some representation of discrete categories
(with community definitions and magni-
tudes specific to each context) can aid in
their understanding and analysis while
also serving to educate and communicate
to non-Indigenous persons the nature and
extent of experienced losses. Examples of
such multiple dimensions of impact include
livelihood (hunting, fishing, trapping, and
harvesting of plants for household use and
nonmarket trade), cash economy (economic
opportunities based in forestry, mining,
fishing, trapping, or place-based tourism),
social relations (relationships with family,
the community, neighbors, and nonhuman
kin), and cultural knowledge (use of lan-
guage, ceremonial practices, or knowledge
transfer as foundations of cultural identity).
Recognize place-based relationships
Members of many Indigenous Nations em-
phasize relationships to places and people,
including members living outside their Na-
tion’s traditional territory. Lands and wa-
ters are typically viewed as living sacred
entities, and the well-being of individuals
and the community rests on a mandate to
protect ecosystem health and relations (13).
Adverse impacts that occur without the
community’s participation or free, prior,
and informed consent on this deep prior-
ity of place and stewardship can introduce
enormous distress, diminishment of iden-
tity, loss of cultural practices and knowl-
edge, or other negative effects that may
persist over decades (14).
The strength and centrality of place-
based considerations is noted in many
Indigenous critiques of land management
(15) and is also manifest across members of
4 AUGUST 2023 • VOL 381 ISSUE 6657 479
INSIGHTS | P O L I C Y F O RU M
non-Indigenous societies, including
small-scale fishers, foragers, farm-
ers, and recreationists. Although
losses to these values are rarely in-
cluded as part of monetary assess-
ments of compensation, there are
some promising examples, such as a
recent project evaluation in British
Columbia that considered the need
for mitigation to protect specific
stands of trees because the stories
and teachings associated with them,
which are basic to cultural continu-
ity, cannot be told unless Elders and
others are at the site where specific
events took place.
Respect community practices
Compensation assessments typi-
cally assume and aggregate the per-
spectives of individuals and their
personal values. However, many
changes in cultural and social prac-
tices experienced by an Indigenous
community are more accurately
valued from a collective perspective
because stewardship is community-
based, with resources shared and
traded rather than transferred be-
tween individuals through market
exchanges. For example, families
often engage in traditional hunting,
fishing, or harvest activities based
on reciprocal family or clan rela-
tions that do not involve cash pay-
ments. These systems of seasonal
rounds and trade often involve
established seasonal movements;
Cree and Dene Elders, for example,
describe groups of families going
to different camps over the course
of summer and fall. Losing this ac-
cess can result in negative impacts
to physical and mental health, in-
tergenerational knowledge trans-
mission, and social relations within
and among families—valuations that are
typically omitted from quantitative assess-
ments because their measurement in dollar
terms is considered problematic.
Communicate uncertainties in
compensation estimates
Monetary compensation for past losses is
based on both quantitative calculations,
which in turn reflect the quality of best
available data, and judgments based on
logic and precedent. Both elements lead
to uncertainties in payment amounts that
need to be made explicit by documenting
key sources of uncertainty and providing
summary low, high, and best-estimate re-
sults that delineate a reasonable range of
compensation outcomes.
480 4 AUGUST 2023 • VOL 381 ISSUE 6657
Methodological requirements
Seven key principles can promote the accuracy and
defensibility of efforts to assess both tangible and
intangible losses.
Identify multiple dimensions of impact
Though types of loss are often interwoven,
representation of the full range of losses as discrete
categories is required to aid in the understanding,
analysis, and communication of impacts.
Recognize place-based relationships
Damages to lands and waters, often viewed as
living sacred entities key to community relationships
and well-being, can introduce enormous distress
and disruption.
Respect community practices
Many changes in cultural and social practices are
more accurately valued from a collective perspective
because resources are shared and traded among
community members.
Communicate uncertainties in compensation estimates
Uncertainties around data, calculations, and
judgments, including proportional attribution of
losses to different factors, should be made explicit
and ideally include a range of estimates.
Consult multiple factual sources
Information from different sources should be
collected, evaluated, and subjected to the same
questions about the confidence of an expert, the
basis for their judgments, and transparency in stating
the limits of their knowledge.
Account for shifts in impact severity over time
Assessments need to reflect that some losses in
the past may still be responsible for impacts in the
present, whereas others may have been ameliorated
by recovery, mitigation, or adaptation.
Clarify relative importance of impacts
Analysts can work with community members
to clarify (and potentially weight) the relative
importance of each impact category, yielding ratio-
like valuations for intangible impact categories.
Data quality is a common contributor to
uncertainty because key sources of informa-
tion about the social, cultural, health, and
well-being consequences of impacts will be
either controversial (with different studies
showing different results) or missing. For
example, this is often the case with respect
to nonphysical health information; statis-
tics on hospital visits or fatalities related to a development could result in substantial
an accident or imposed project may easily
be available but not information on stress,
mental health, or relational effects.
In addition, other aspects of society and
the environment are likely to have also
changed during the period over which im-
pacts are assessed. This requires that judg-
ments be made by analysts and their logic
clearly stated—after speaking with commu-
nity members and gathering infor-
mation from external sources—with
respect to the proportion of losses
for each impact category eligible for
compensation. For example, fish-
ing harvests may decrease after a
marine oil spill, but other factors,
such as temperature changes in the
estuary owing to climate change or
overfishing by commercial fleets,
may account for a proportion of the
loss over time and thereby reduce
estimates of compensation relating
to the spill.
Consult multiple factual sources
Different sources of information
may provide substantially different
factual results, and findings from
field or modeling efforts of non-
Indigenous scientists may vary or
be at odds with the observations
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of Indigenous leaders (15). In such
cases, dialogue and further inves-
tigation are essential, and often
involve asking the same validation
and reliability questions of the var-
ious sources. Decision-makers may
be placed in the position of having
to decide what information and
which sources they trust, choices
that, in our experience, should re-
flect equally the confidence of a
factual expert (either Indigenous
or non-Indigenous), the basis on
which their judgment is made, and
their transparency in stating the
limits of their knowledge.
Clarifying sources of informa-
tion for the categories of loss also
helps to streamline the collection
of factual information by focus-
ing efforts on changes identified
as both important and linked to
the development or event in ques-
tion. Although redress is typically
specific to a single cause, many Indigenous
communities have been subjected to ongo-
ing damages from several discrete but re-
lated causes whose effects are cumulative.
Information relating to this legacy needs
to be acknowledged as part of compensa-
tion negotiations because it implies that
even relatively short-term losses related to
harm to the extent that the community has
already suffered from long-term exposure to
adverse impacts that jeopardized practices
essential to its survival.
Account for shifts in impact
severity over time
Quantitative calculations need to consider
that some losses experienced in the past—
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particularly acts of violence—may still
be responsible for considerable impacts
in the present, whereas other losses may
have been ameliorated either by partial re-
covery and mitigation of the impact or by
adaptation over time on the part of com-
munity members. The well-documented
resilience of Indigenous communities im-
plies that some degree of recovery may
have occurred over the time period under
consideration, at least with respect to some
impacts. Analyses of changes over time
can be used to adjust annual or decadal
calculations of present-value monetary
payments (e.g., adjusted by the consumer
price index) to enhance the precision
and defensibility of monetary compensa-
tion estimates.
Assess relative importance of impacts
Absolute dollar amounts for tangible cat-
egories of loss can often be calculated using
conventional economic approaches (e.g., re-
placement costs, adjustments for inflation).
Intangible loss categories, however, involve
nonmonetary descriptions and measures.
Analysts can work with community mem-
bers to clarify the relative importance of
each impact category, yielding distinct
ratio-like equivalents for the intangible
impact categories without requiring their
translation into dollar terms. If required by
legislation or legal precedent, these weights
are used to assign each intangible impact
category a monetary value in relation to the
tangible, dollar-based categories.
Weighting of impact categories—a stan-
dard practice in decision analysis—can be
done in several ways (8). For example, as-
sume a community has identified multiple
impact categories and that the present
value of category A is estimated to be $20
million. Any impact category rated twice as
important as category A will be considered
to have a dollar-equivalent value of $40
million, whereas an impact category half as
important will be assigned a value of $10
million. Adoption of a linear value model
means that the importance weight on each
category is used as a multiplier, where the
sum across all categories thus equals the to-
tal value of losses eligible for compensation.
Because the process is likely to be unfa-
miliar to participants and may be emotion-
ally or cognitively challenging, it is helpful
to discuss, reconcile, and potentially revise
the relative weighting results with par-
ticipants so that findings are accurate and
stable. We have found that communities of-
ten prefer impact weightings to occur with
a small representative group, for example,
hereditary and clan Chiefs, with the addi-
tion of Elders and younger members where
this is considered to be appropriate.
SCIENCE science.org
POLICY IMPLICATIONS
Insights from social and natural scientists
(1) and Indigenous-led critiques of assess-
ment practices (3) are beginning to change
the scope and focus of efforts to determine
fair levels of compensation for past and on-
going losses. Governments now recognize
that historical precedents and previous
judgments may not reflect present societal
standards of fairness and justice and may
be incompatible with contemporary Indige-
nous rights (e.g., as designated in UNDRIP).
Yet across multiple contexts of loss, ranging
from local (e.g., the traditional lands of a
single community) to global (e.g., compen-
sating for climate change impacts as part
of the Green Climate Fund), the challenge
is for policy aspirations to be linked to and
supported by the world of compensation
methods, which continues to emphasize
tangible and economic net losses while
minimizing or ignoring the importance of
many less-tangible social, cultural, non-
physical health, and governance impacts.
The need to include intangible impacts
as part of monetary compensation is par-
ticularly urgent with respect to Indigenous
peoples for two reasons. First, the lack of
precedence for the use of methods to de-
fensibly calculate relative dollar values of
social and cultural losses means that al-
though policy recommendations are now
being made that acknowledge the impor-
tance of intangible impacts, the reality is
that payment amounts for many important
losses are considered to be incalculable. As
a result, compensation is often partial and
biased, with the types and magnitude of
payments for losses included in agreements
more often reflecting the relative negotiat-
ing strengths of the different parties rather
than a comprehensive identification of
losses and a consistent or principled logic.
Second, when compared with populations
that are reliant on conventional market-
based transactions, intangible social and
cultural losses more profoundly influence
the ability of Indigenous communities to
sustain their cultural identity and liveli-
hood. The failure to adopt methods that fa-
cilitate inclusion of the full range and mag-
nitude of impacts as part of compensation
negotiations and court settlements is thus
more damaging and the absence of proce-
dural fairness more egregious.
We recognize that determination of com-
pensation awards, whether to Indigenous or
non-Indigenous communities, involves and
reflects many factors: societal values, con-
stitutional rights, legal precedents, political
objectives, and both the directness and con-
sistency of the event and damage linkage. But
the methodological approaches discussed
here show that much can be done to bring
less-tangible social and cultural losses into
the formal compensation assessment frame-
work by combining insights from economics,
decision analysis, Indigenous methodologies,
ecology, and anthropology. This across-disci-
plines task is challenging, and the adoption
of social and cultural impact assessment
methods that more closely reflect the spirit
of current policies holds broader societal and
political implications with regard to society’s
responsibility to compensate communities
for experienced past (and, in many cases,
continuing) damages. Negotiations, politics,
and power will always play a role. But pub-
lic policies regarding compensation will be
more defensible and their implications more
widely acceptable to the extent that impact
assessments rely on and reflect the results of
sound and logically consistent analytic meth-
ods that address the full range of tangible
and intangible losses. j
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ACKNOWL EDGMENTS
The authors thank members and leaders of the many
Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities with whom they
have been privileged to work; their knowledge and willing-
ness to share has been essential to the development and
acceptance of this approach. The authors thank their many
research colleagues, both Indigenous (C. Brooks, M. Henare, P.
Kulchyski, R. Neckoway, and M. Roberts) and non-Indigenous
(S. McLachlan, L. Robertson, M. Harstone, T. McDaniels, W.
Trousdale, and D. Boyd), for their contributions to the authors’
learning over the past two decades. Some of this work has
been produced in contexts where Indigenous partners opted
for independent assessments by the authors rather than
through explicit collaborations. The authors are grateful
for support provided by the National Science Foundation’s
program in Decision, Risk and Management Sciences, under
grant nos. 1728807 and 0451259 to Decision Research.
10.1126/science.adi2206
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 Methods for assessing social and cultural losses
Robin Gregory, Philip Halteman, Nicole Kaechele, and Terre Satterfield

Science, 381 (6657), .

DOI: 10.1126/science.adi2206

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