Compensating aboriginal cultural losses: an alternative approach to assessing environmental damages

We first identify six primary problems with conventional practice: lack of context, inadequate participation from aboriginal communities, exclusion of important losses, reliance on market-based measures, neglect of uncertainty, and inadequate treatment of time. We then propose a different approach to compensation, based on insights from the decision sciences and structured decision making. Using case-study examples, we discuss how the proposed approach might address common sources of cultural loss and, in a concluding section, summarize some of the implications for compensation agreements and for environmental management practices.