The academic literature on trade-offs in ecosystem management has paid relatively little attention to justice and poverty reduction objectives. The aim of this paper is to highlight the multiple dimensions of trade-offs in ecosystem services management for poverty alleviation, and to support decision-makers in planning for the almost inevitable trade-offs arising from environmental interventions. The paper brings together different dimensions or lenses through which to analyse trade-offs in ecosystem management for poverty alleviation in a low-income country context. Following a literature review of trade-off decisions, the paper introduces the Balance Sheets Approach to structure trade-off analysis and appraise decisions. We apply the Balance Sheets Approach to analyse five case studies set in very different social-ecological systems where trade-offs were pertinent and undermined poverty alleviation. We show how the combination of ‘positive’ approaches, often used at strategic level, with ‘value’ approaches which analyse multiple values, multi-scale governance, power and capacity, is necessary to analyse complex trade-offs. Based on the case studies we identify four lessons for future trade-off analysis in the context of ecosystem management for poverty alleviation in low-income settings.

关于生态系统管理权衡的学术文献很少关注正义和减贫目标。本文的目的是强调在生态系统服务管理中的多种折衷方案，以减轻贫困，并支持决策者为环境干预措施中几乎不可避免的折衷方案做规划。本文汇集了不同的维度或视角，通过它们可以分析在低收入国家背景下为减轻贫困而进行的生态系统管理中的权衡取舍。在对折衷决策进行文献综述之后，本文介绍了资产负债表方法来构建折衷分析和评估决策。我们使用资产负债表方法来分析在非常不同的社会生态系统中进行的五个案例研究，在这些生态系统中，需要权衡取舍，并且破坏了扶贫。我们展示了经常在战略层面使用的“积极”方法与分析多种价值，多尺度治理，权力和能力的“价值”方法相结合对于分析复杂的权衡取舍的必要性。在案例研究的基础上，我们从生态系统管理的角度为低收入环境中的贫困人口确定了未来需要进行权衡分析的四个教训。