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Report by: Suzanne van der Meulen & Jos Brils (Deltares)
Contact: suzanne.vandermeulen@deltares.nl or jos.brils@deltares.nl
Introduction
Ecosystem services (ES) are the goods and services provided by ecosystems. The concept relates ecosystems to the social-economic system and thereby explains the dependence of, and impact on, ecosystems by society (see figure below).
One potentially attractive feature of the ES concept is that it might provide a
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panel session at the Resilience 2011 Conference on Sunday 13 March 2011 in Tempe, Arizona, USA1.
The first half of the session consisted of presentations by three researchers providing their experiences and lessons learned in place-based case studies: one from
Australia, one from USA and one from Europe. These cases vary in spatial scale as well as in their state of evolution.
During the second half of this session, two statements were offered for discussion with the audience:
“Do not use the word ES in your discussions with local stakeholders, such as farmers, citizens etc”;
“The ES concept should be embedded in a policy or institutional framework to make it work”.
Part 1 - Case study 1: Ecosystem services as a practical concept for
natural resource management: some lessons from Australia
Presented by Roel Plant, University of Technology Sydney, Australia, e-mail:
Roel.Plant@uts.edu.au
An inventory of scientific publications in Australia and worldwide (see figure below) shows a strong increase in ES-related publications over time. This suggests
enthusiasm amongst researchers. However, not all publications that are referred to as ES research, really address ES but sometimes use it for ‘sales’ purposes only.
Interviews with regional managers in the Australian states of Victoria and New South Wales suggested that the ES concept, mostly without labeling it as such, has partially been adopted by regional managers (e.g. through stewardship payments such as
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‘BushTender2’), however with a narrow focus. Managers stated that they prefer not to use the ES concept in their communication with local stakeholders including farmers because they fear it would alienate rather than engage stakeholders. The lack of broad adoption of the ES concept in Australia is not so much due to a failure of language, but rather due to a lack of an institutional framework to drive subsequent steps. Policy targets largely determine the focus of Australian natural resource managers. If the ES concept is not institutionally embedded, for example in regulations, Australian regional managers will not adopt the ES approach.
Part 1 - Case study 2: Ecosystem services as a common language for
coastal management: a case study of the Puget Sound Partnership
Presented by Elise Granek, Portland State University, USA, e-mail: graneke@pdx.edu Management decisions involve tradeoffs among ES and benefits to different
stakeholder groups. Some of the management challenges are:
Agency mandates to manage different sectors sometimes conflict; Scientists from different disciplines and focusing on different parts of the system may appear to offer conflicting information, which suggests lack of a common (shared) systems view;
Stakeholders lack a common language to develop solutions.
The Puget Sound Public-Private Partnership conducted an ES-based assessment on priorities and goals for the Puget Sound (Washington, USA). This bay (see picture above) has a multitude of resource users that depend on the coastal zone for ES
2 BushTender is an auction-based approach to improving the management of native vegetation on private land. Under this system, landholders competitively tender for contracts to better protect and improve their native vegetation. See:
http://www.dse.vic.gov.au/DSE/nrence.nsf/LinkView/15F9D8C40FE51BE64A256A72007E12DC37EBE3A50C29F4F8CA2573B600 1A84D5
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such as fisheries and recreation. This makes the area very valuable but also highly vulnerable.
ES improved communication by providing a common ground (key services to all groups), by specific ES values by region (which enables diversification of
management strategies) and by clarifying tradeoffs (development affects services spatially or among services).
We should be aware that different stakeholders value specific ES in different ways. For example, a fisher will value different services than a boater or conservationist. A member from the panel session audience asked whether or not it was considered as a problem that – so far – no quantitative knowledge had been used in the ES assessment. To date, the stakeholders do not consider this as a problem. Probably the need for quantitative information will arise later on in the process, when implementing the ES goals in management plans.
Part 1 - Ecosystem services as common language to facilitate
participation in a Dutch, regional river restoration case
Presented by Jos Brils, Deltares, the Netherlands, e-mail: jos.brils@deltares.nl One of the Dutch water boards (who manage the water system at a local scale) – i.e.
Waterschap de Dommel – is interested to initiate a river restoration project. In order to implement this plan, the water board has the intention and sees the necessity to cooperate with local stakeholders, mainly the farmers. Communication (see figure below) turned out to be crucial here and a common language is desired (and required).
Brils & Harris, 2009 ; © illustraties.nu
The ES concept was applied, following steps 1, 2, 3 and 5 as proposed by the World Resources Institute (see figure at the next page). A structured framework for interviews about ES was developed and applied in interviews with selected persons from the different stakeholder groups.
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Source: ES guide to descion makers (www.wri.org)
Results show that just a few ‘ES interviews’ – so a relatively minor effort – made it possible to tap a lot of local knowledge and to come up with a very ‘rich’ description of the local ecosystem and its link to the socio-economic system. During the
interviews, insights emerged which also surprised the interviewees themselves (“I never realized that ...”). The specific ES were easily understood by the stakeholders. It was also concluded that the study area could/should be a bit larger (stretch of 10 to 15 km’s instead of ca. 5 km’s) and multiple scales should be addressed because it turned out that the relevance of some ES – such as CO2 sequestration – was not considered relevant by the stakeholders at the scale that has been addressed.
Part 2: Statements discussed with the audience
Do not use the word ES in your discussion with local stakeholders, such as farmers, citizens etc.
In the USA, a survey among ~800 people was conducted in which interviewees were asked about ES. The respondents could also choose from 16 options for the most attractive word for ES. It turned out that ES was among the four least popular. During the interviews the word nature’s value and nature’s benefits were the most popular. During the interviews in the Dutch case, the word ecosystem services was not used because previous testing workshops had also demonstrated that this word is not (yet) well understood and leads to unhelpful and confusing discussions about meaning an defintions. In the Dutch case the interviewees were asked about
functions of the natural system and elements in the landscape that provide, or affect ES. This worked out quite well.
Some nice quotes from the discussion:
“Although we have a common language, it does not mean that we necessarily mean the same thing”;
“Try to ‘resonate’ with people”; “Embed ES in culture”;
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“Rethink the need for action (urgency) first – why is there a need for action? – and then see how the use of ES might be beneficial to really come to action”;
“Carefully consider the role of the private sector in implemenation of the ES approach”.
The ES concept should be embedded in a policy or institutional framework to make it work
It was stated at the start of this discussion that in general the farm lobby is
extremely strong in the Australia, the US and Europe and that the ES approach may go against their traditions. This makes natural resource management (NRM) very complicated. To make NRM work you really have to stay focused on the issue: what is/was the urgency and necessity for action (see also quotes above)? Nice thing about the ES approach is that it assigns concrete ES to stakeholders for which they are accountable and can be measured against (i.e. the positive or negative effect of their actions on that ES).
As part of institutional reform, embedding of ES in a legal framework may indeed be helpful to make the ES concept operational. Institutions mostly follow a sectoral approach (‘work in silos’) – planning laws, for example, may be incompatible with – or even tangential to – environmental legislation. Thus, it seems that we need some restructuring of institutions in order to enable them to implement ES based
management: more via ‘bottom-up’ regional lines instead of ‘top-down’ sectoral lines.
Experience so far showed that at least the ES concept brings people together. We should be aware of the risks of focusing on preservation or optimization of one single ES; it is counterproductive to the systemic, ecosystem based management approach. A focus on ‘bundles of ES’ is more consistent with a systemic approach.
Payment for ecosystem services (PES) also opens up new discussions that many seem to understand (and others dislike) because it involves ‘putting a price on
nature’. However, a significant body of research suggests that monetary ES valuation should also involve a sound participatory process3. It was mentioned that numerous examples for PES can be found around the globe, but not specifically mentioning ES. It is in any way a sound idea to involve stakeholders in NRM since the authorities that supervise and guard that management cannot be present on site at all the time. Some nice quotes from the discussion:
“It is not the ES approach but that ‘what lies behind it’ should be embedded in legislation”;
“Installement of Public-Private-Partnerships may help to make ES work”; “I don’t trust our governance to take a holistic view”.
