Ecosystem Services: A Guide For Decision Makers

Download as pdf or txt
Download as pdf or txt
You are on page 1of 96

JANET RANGANATHAN

CIARA RAUDSEPP-HEARNE

NICOLAS LUCAS

FRANCES IRWIN

MONIKA ZUREK

KAREN BENNETT

NEVILLE ASH

PAUL WEST

ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
A Guide for Decision Makers
PLUS The Decision: A ctional story about a community facing ecosystem change
ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
A Guide for Decision Makers

JANET RANGANATHAN

CIARA RAUDSEPP-HEARNE

NICOLAS LUCAS

FRANCES IRWIN

MONIKA ZUREK

KAREN BENNETT

NEVILLE ASH

PAUL WEST
Each World Resources Institute report represents a timely, scholarly treatment of a subject of public concern.
WRI takes responsibility for choosing the study topics and guaranteeing its authors and researchers freedom of
inquiry. It also solicits and responds to the guidance of advisory panels and expert reviewers. Unless otherwise stated,
however, all the interpretation and ndings set forth in WRI publications are those of the authors, and do not necessarily
reect the views of WRI or the collaborating organizations.

Copyright 2008 World Resources Institute. All rights reserved.


ISBN 978-1-56973-669-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2007941147
Cover and title page images by Getty Images and Hisashi Arakawa (www.emerald.st)
Table of Contents
FOREWORD i

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii

SUMMARY iv

CHAPTER 1: Introduction 1
Ecosystem services and development 3
Condition and trends of ecosystem services 6
Entry points for mainstreaming ecosystem services 8
About this guide 9
The Decision: Where the Secretary connects ecosystems and human well-being 11

CHAPTER 2: Framing the Link between Development and Ecosystem Services 13


Make the connections between ecosystems and development 15
Build effective processes for assessing ecosystem services and selecting policies 19
Apply the framework and principles: A mini case study 21
The Decision: Where the Secretary tries to explain ecosystem services at a
cabinet meeting and a process is created 25

CHAPTER 3: Assessing Risks and Opportunities Related to Ecosystem Services 29


Step one: Identify the ecosystem services in play 30
Step two: Screen the ecosystem services for relevance 32
Step three: Assess the condition and trends of the relevant ecosystem services 33
Step four: Assess the need for an economic valuation of services 36
Step ve: Identify ecosystem service risks and opportunities 38
The Decision: Where the technical team goes to work 41

CHAPTER 4: Exploring Future Trends in Ecosystem Services 45


Why explore alternative futures 46
The scenarios approach 47
Benets of a scenarios process 52
The Decision: Where the Mayor and the community explore the future 54

CHAPTER 5: Choosing Policies to Sustain Ecosystem Services 57


Incorporate ecosystem service risks and opportunities into development strategies 58
Review the legal framework and policy options for sustaining ecosystem services 59
Choose policies to sustain ecosystem services 60
Adopt a learning approach to implementing policies 66
The Decision: Where a decision is made 69

CONCLUSION: An Ecosystem Services Approach for reconciling development and nature 74


List of Tables, Figures and Boxes
TABLES
1.1 Linking Development Goals and Ecosystem Services 4
1.2 Ecosystem Services: Global Status and Trends 7
1.3 Entry Points for Mainstreaming Ecosystem Services 9
2.1 List of Ecosystem Services 23
3.1 Common Ecosystem Services and Drivers by Ecosystem Type 31
3.2 Methods to Assess Ecosystem Services 34
3.3 Indicators Used to Assess the Quantity and Quality of Freshwater 34
3.4 Rio Grande: Ecosystem Service Dependencies, Trends and Impacts of Drivers 35
3.5 Common Economic Valuation Methods 37
3.6 Examples of Ecosystem Service Trade-offs 39
4.1 Steps in Scenario Development and Relevance to Policymaking 48
4.2 Options for Comparing Scenarios 50
4.3 Rio Grande: Assumptions about Ecosystem Drivers and Resulting Changes for Two Scenarios 52
5.1 Policy Options for Sustaining Ecosystem Services 61
5.2 Design Criteria for Selecting Policies 64
5.3 Policies to Reduce Land Conversion in Rio Grande Watershed 65
5.4 Design Criteria for Proposed Policy Option: Establish Protected Areas 66

FIGURES
1.1 The Relationship between Development and Ecosystem Services 3
1.2 Comparing the Economic and Social Value of Mangroves and Shrimp Farms 5
2.1 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Conceptual Framework of Interactions Among
Ecosystem Services, Human Well-being, and Drivers of Change 14
2.2 The Links between Ecosystem Services and Human Well-being 17
2.3 Fish Landings of North Atlantic Cod off Newfoundland 19
3.1 Overview of Steps in Assessing Risks and Opportunities Related to Ecosystem Services 30
3.2 Value of Services Provided by Converted and Sustainably Managed Ecosystems 36
4.1 Tools for Addressing Future Uncertainty and Complexity 47

BOXES
1.1 Main Findings of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 8
2.1 Applications of an Ecosystem Services Approach 15
2.2 Biodiversity and the Provision of Natural Pest Control 18
2.3 The Authority of Scientic Consensus 20
2.4 Engaging Local Communities in the Assessment of Ecosystem Services 21
3.1 Supplying New York City with Clean Drinking Water:
Watershed Ecosystem Services versus Filtration Plant 32
3.2 Issues to Think about When Gathering and Assessing Ecosystem Services Data 33
3.3 Economic Valuation in Practice: Valuing Coastal Resources in the Caribbean 38
3.4 Tools for Analyzing Trade-offs 39
4.1 Scenarios for the Caribbean Sea 49
4.2 The Global Scenarios of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and their Outcomes 52
5.1 Taking a Broad, Sustained Approach: Vittels Experience 66
Foreword

T
he Brazilian basin of the Amazon River holds our dependency on natures benets, or ecosystem services, is
the worlds largest expanse of tropical forest. It seldom taken into account by either.
directly sustains the livelihoods of members of It is easy for many of us to forget our connection to nature.
hundreds of Indian tribes as well as city dwell- We have clean water at the turn of a faucet, a diverse selection
ers, farmers, and ranchers. The forests are not of fruit, vegetables, and meat on the shelves of a grocery store.
only vital to the national economy, but also to people around We have no idea about the health of the ecosystems supplying
the globe. Known as the Lungs of our Planet, Amazon for- these services. And we are largely unaware of how our choices
ests continuously recycle carbon dioxide into oxygen, cleaning affect the health of these ecosystems. Perhaps this is partly
air and regulating regional and global climate. because around the worldBrazil and the United States
Puget Sound, a large salt water estuary in the U.S. Pa- includedmore than half of us live in urban areas that use
cic Northwest, is one of the worlds most productive and three fourths of Earths natural resources. We seldom pay for
biologically diverse ecosystems. Carved by glaciers and fed many of the benets nature providesthe ltering power of
by thousands of rivers and streams, it provides a habitat for wetlands or mangroves or the climate control of forests.
the iconic Pacic salmon. It also provides ood protection, Thanks to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the
natural storm water management, drinking water production rst global check-up of our ecosystems and their capacity to
and ltration, and recreation for its residents and the many provide us with ecosystem services, we now know that we can
who come to visit. no longer afford to take natures benets for granted. Fifteen
What do these two treasures, the Brazilian Amazon and out of 24 ecosystem services assessed are already degraded,
Puget Sound, have in common? Both are undergoing rapid threatening our ability to build vibrant communities.
change as a result of human pressure and climate change. The time has come to stop putting development and envi-
One fth of the Brazilian Amazon has been deforested by ronment in separate boxes, and instead acknowledge that the
loggers, farmers, and ranchers. Puget Sound faces environ- two are inextricably bound together. Making these links is at
mental challenges ranging from water pollution and toxic- the heart of the World Resources Institute missionincreas-
laden sediments to loss of habitat. Like this guide, both ing prosperity and protecting the planet. It is also what this
regions are pioneering ways to reconcile development and guide is all about.
environment goals not just for the sake of nature, but also The guide uses ecosystem servicesthe benets of na-
for the sake of people. tureto make the link between nature and development.
Reconciling development and nature is challenging These services include food and ber and fuel but also the
because we have traditionally put these two goals in separate largely unpriced services of clean air and clean water, natural
boxesseparate academic disciplines, separate government hazard protection, pollination, and spiritual sustenance. In
agencies, and correspondingly separate laws and policies. policymaking, natures goods and services belong in the same
Development planners too often assume that the natural as- category as the assets of capital and labor. The language of
sets that development depends onfreshwater, natural hazard ecosystem services provides a way for policymakers to identify
protection, pollination, to name just a fewwill always be how a decision depends on natures ow and how a decision
there. Conservationists, on the other hand, are often preoc- will in turn affect the ow. It increases our ability to under-
cupied with minimizing the negative impacts of development stand and make trade-offs across ecosystem services, in space
on nature or putting it off limits to people. The full extent of and time, and in doing so win more and lose less.
The guide draws on our early experience in measuring and
managing multiple ecosystem services to outline how to assess
the services development depends on and affects, how to use

cont i n u e d

FOREWORD i
Foreword

scenarios to explore the future, and how to choose policies protection against oods. Healthy, resilient ecosystems will
that sustain ecosystems for development. It also uses a novel be more capable of adapting to climate change and buffering
approach. It tells a ctional story about a city grappling with abrupt changes in the supply of ecosystem services critical to
preventing oods and providing clean water while helping our well-being.
the country raise and sell biofuels. The story illustrates the If we want to pass these natural assets on to our children
difcult trade-offs that policymakers face in many parts of and those who follow them, we must do a better job of rec-
the world: how to provide cleaner energy and jobs but avoid onciling human development and ecosystem protection. This
increasing food and land prices and endangering forests and guide aims to show the way.
clean water. The politics and power plays aptly captured by
the story will be familiar to many of you.
Choices about biofuel are just one example of the intrica-
cies posed by decisions to reconcile development and nature.
Brazil brings experience in trying to balance the demand for
land for growing sugar cane, raising other crops, or grazing
animals while avoiding fragmentation of the forests. Puget Fernando Henrique Cardoso
Sound is developing an ecosystem-wide roadmap to restore Board Member, World Resources Institute
the health of the Sound by 2020. Even more daunting are Professor-At-Large, The Watson Institute for
choices about climate change. International Studies, Brown University
We now know the global climate is changing and at Former President of Brazil
the same time our natural assets are dwindling. These two
trends are on a collision courseand the consequences will
be felt by all, but especially by the poor among us. Climate
change affects the quantity, quality, and timing of ecosystem
services such as water for power, irrigation, and household
and sacred use. Investing in restoring and maintaining William D. Ruckelshaus
healthy ecosystems may be our best insurance against climate Chairman Emeritus, World Resources Institute Board
change. Forests help regulate climate by absorbing carbon Chairman, Puget Sound Leadership Council
dioxide from the atmosphere. Mangroves and wetlands afford Former Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

ii ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


Acknowledgments
EDITOR
Christine Mlot

DESIGN
Overall layout: Dever Designs
Illustrations for The Decision: A Story about Ecosystem Services: Alejandro Telo

RESEARCH AND ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT


Navid Ahdieh, Hyacinth Billings, Alexa Clay, Katherine Didow, Changxin Fang, Maria Elena Gutierrez, Jennie
Hommel, Gwen Parker, Brianna Peterson, Kristin Snyder, and Madison Warner

USER FORUM
Marian delos Angeles (World Bank Institute), Philip Bubb (UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre), Peter
Hazlewood (UNDP), Hector Malarin (IADB), Charles McNeill (UNDP), Laszlo Pinter (IISD), Walt Reid (The
David and Lucile Packard Foundation), David Smith (UNEP), Luis Uribe (IADB), Konrad von Ritter (World
Bank), Brian Walker (CSIRO), Andrew Watson (DAI), and Paul West (The Nature Conservancy)

REVIEWERS
Tundi Agardy (Sound Seas), Gordana Beltram (Ministry of the Environment Slovenia), Maria Berlekom (Swedish
International Biodiversity Programme), Greg Bischak (Appalachian Regional Commission), Hernan Blanco, Jan
Boj (World Bank), Rob Bowman (UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), Anne Marie Sloth
Carlsen (Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Terry Chapin (University of Alaska), Owen Cylke (World Wildlife
Fund), Rudolph de Groot (Wageningen University and Research Centre), Don Doering (Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation), Anantha Duraiappah (UNEP), Marianne Fernagut (UNEP/Global Resource Information Database-
Arendal), Alex Forbes (UNDP), Keisha Garcia (The Cropper Foundation), Madeleine Garlick, Barry Goldman
(Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation), Jacob Gyam-Aidoo (Environmental Information Systems Africa), Cate
Harrington (The Nature Conservancy), Norbert Henninger (WRI), Nicolas Houde (McGill University), Karen
Hughes-Field (Alberta Environment), Tony Janetos (The Heinz Center), David Jhirad (WRI), Bud Jordahl, Piet
Klop (Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Karin Krchnak (The Nature Conservancy), Pushpam Kumar
(University of Liverpool), Tony LaVina (Ateneo School of Government, Philippines), Florence Landsberg (WRI),
Marcus Lee (UNEP), Bill Manseld (UNEP-Regional Ofce for North America), Mary Melnyk (US Agency
for International Development), Kenton Miller, Robin Murphy (WRI), Robin Naidoo (World Wildlife Fund),
Angela Nugent (US Environmental Protection Agency), Helen OConnor (UK Department for International
Development), Wilbur Ottichilo (Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development), Charles Perrings
(Arizona State University), Garry Peterson (McGill University), Daniel Prager (WRI), Cecilia Procope Repinski
(WRI), Samantha Putt del Pino (WRI), Chella Rajan (Indian Institute of Technology Madras), Carmen Revenga
(The Nature Conservancy), Belinda Reyers (Council of Scientic and Industrial Research), Dale Rothman
(International Institute for Sustainable Development), Guido Schmidt-Traub (United Nations Millennium Project),
Frederik Schutyser, Susan Shaw (Calvert County Commissioner), Louise Sorensen (UNDP), Mariel Aguilar Stoen
(University of Oslo), Heather Tallis (Stanford University), Christine Tam (The Nature Conservancy), Alex Tu (BC
Hydro), Detlef van Vuuren (Netherlands Environment Assessment Agency), Sandra Velarde (Consultative Group on
International Agricultural Research), Matt Zylstra (Foundation for Sustainable Development)

FUNDERS
The Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Irish Aid, Government of Ireland; the John D. and Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation; the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the David and Lucile Packard Foundation; and
Swedish International Biodiversity Programme.

ACKNOWL EDGEM EN TS iii


Summary

H
uman well-being utterly depends on nature. than in any comparable period of history, primarily to meet
Development, dened broadly to encompass growing needs for food, freshwater, timber, ber, and fuel.
social, economic, and environmental aspects These changes have resulted in signicant benets to humans,
of growth, aims to improve human well-be- including improvements in health and a reduction in the
ing. Despite the inextricable connections, proportion of malnourished people. However, these gains
development and nature have frequently been considered in have come at an increasing cost.
isolation or even in opposition. This guide aims to help deci- As ecosystems have been altered, many of their goods and
sion makers reconcile the two by outlining how an Ecosystems servicesthe food and freshwater, the regulating services,
Services Approach can be incorporated into existing decision and cultural benets they provideare in jeopardy. Two
making processes to strengthen development strategies. It is thirds of the ecosystem services we depend on are degraded.
intended for use by a city mayor; a local planning commission This degradation will likely grow signicantly worse in the
member; a provincial governor; an international development rst half of the 21st century. It threatens human well-being
agency ofcial; or a national minister of nance, energy, water, and the goals of development. But evidence is accumulating
or environment and those working for them. that taking an Ecosystems Services Approach can make
Decision makers may be focused on reducing poverty, development more sustainable by sustaining natures capacity
increasing food production, strengthening resilience to to provide needed goods and services.
climate change, or producing energy. The development This guide assembles that evidence for use by a decision
projects and policies intended to meet these goals often go maker. It details the processes that they can use, beginning
forward unwittingly at the expense of naturea dam to with a conceptual framework that links development and
produce electricity reduces sh populations, a national plan to ecosystem services and ending with guidance for choosing
expand agriculture may increase deforestation leading to soil policies to sustain ecosystem services.
erosion and ooding. Ultimately, the development goals are The guide develops the conceptual framework from the
undermined as the effects of these trade-offs are felt by people Millennium Ecosystem Assessment to help decision makers
who depend on nature for their livelihood and well-being, gain a better understanding of how development goals both
whether it is sh stocks for food, protection from downstream affect and depend on ecosystem services. All the interacting
ooding, or spiritual sustenance. components of the framework are dissected in relation to
This guide explains how to improve the outcome of these a development goal, beginning with people and their well-
trade-offs in decision making. It builds on existing experience being, then moving through the full range of supportive
with multiple-use ecosystem management, ecosystem ecosystem services and the strength of their links to human
restoration, and conservation planning, but identies well-being, the direct and indirect drivers of change to
ecosystem services more explicitly. It responds to the ndings ecosystems that a decision maker needs to be aware of, and
of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a four-year global the spatial and temporal scales that a decision operates on.
effort involving more than 1,300 experts that assessed The guide emphasizes the two principles, credibility and
the condition and trends of the worlds ecosystems. The legitimacy, that must apply to information a decision maker
Assessment found that in the last half of the 20th century, uses throughout the process.
humans changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively The guide then details the ve steps involved in assessing
risks and opportunities related to ecosystem services. The rst
step is to identify all the ecosystem services that a decision
depends on and affects, by systematically analyzing the
ecosystems and their services in a particular locale. The guide

iv ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


assumptions and choices about ecosystem
services. Exploring the future is important
for avoiding the unintended consequences
that often arise from development projects,
such as a sh species imported for food that
becomes an invasive predator. The guide
details the steps involved in one particularly
useful technique for exploring the future,
scenario building. Scenarios are stories
about the future, told as a set of plausible
alternative futures about what might happen
under particular assumptions.

D I G I TALVISION
The guide concludes with a discussion on
choosing policies to sustain ecosystem services
in light of the ecosystem services assessment
includes a detailed list of all the services a decision maker and explorations of the future. It focuses on uncovering the
would need to consider. The second step is to determine risks in development policies that may exacerbate ecosystem
which of these ecosystem services are most relevant to a degradation as well as the opportunities to further development
decision or development goal, to set priorities for further goals by sustaining ecosystem services. It explains how to
assessment. The guide explains the criteria a decision maker incorporate development policies to address these risks and
would use in this screening. The third step is to conduct a opportunities within an existing legal framework. Decision
detailed analysis of the condition and trends of the most makers can apply the Ecosystems Services Approach outlined
relevant ecosystem services, based on a set of questions and here in the course of establishing national and sub-national
issues provided by the guide. The fourth step addresses the policies, economic and scal incentives, sector policies, or
dollar value of the ecosystem services in question, for use in governance forums. The guide provides extensive examples of
development cost-benet analyses, for example. The guide policy options in each such category and also provides design
points to resources on how to conduct economic valuation, criteria for selecting among them.
if this is necessary. The nal step is to analyze the risks and By offering decision makers the conceptual and practical
opportunities that arise from a decision in relation to the guidance for choosing policies that better attend to
ecosystem services. The guide lists the type of trade-offs ecosystem services, this guide aims to help unite nature and
associated with developments that a decision maker should development. Instead of solely working to protect nature
consider. from development, we may also begin to invest in nature for
While assessing the current status of ecosystem services development.
is crucial for successful development, decision makers
also need to look into the future to assess the options for
addressing ecosystem change. The guide can help decision
makers explore what may unfold in the future given certain

SU MM ARY v
C H A P T E R

1
Lead Authors
Karen Bennett
Ecosystem services and development .............................................. 3
Janet Ranganathan
Paul West
Condition and trends of ecosystem services .................................... 6
Contributing Authors
Entry points for mainstreaming ecosystem services........................ 8 Frances Irwin
Charles Perrings
About this guide ............................................................................... 9 Dagmar Timmer

PHOTOS BY DIGITALVISION AND GETTY IMAGES


Introduction

P
eople everywhere depend on nature for their This guide is intended for use by a city mayor; a local plan-
well-being. Nature is the source of such obvious ning commission member; a provincial governor; an inter-
necessities as food and fresh water. Its ecosystems national development agency ofcial; or a national minister
also provide less obvious services such as storm of nance, energy, water, or environment. It can help answer
protection and pollination. The natural world questions such as:
provides spiritual and recreational benets as well. These and What is the relationship between ecosystems and develop-
other benets of natures ecosystems (see key terms below) have ment? (chapter 1)
supported the extraordinary growth and progress of the hu- Why do ecosystem services matter? (chapter 1)
man population. Yet many ecosystem services are in a state of How can an ecosystem services framework help organize a
decline, and we are learning that natures benets can no longer decision-making process? (chapter 2)
be taken for granted. Ignoring these services in public and pri- What are the most common ecosystem services? (chapter 2)
vate decision making threatens our ways of living and impedes When and how can the economic value of ecosystem
our ability to achieve our aspirations for the future. services be quantied? (chapter 3)
Recognizing the links between ecosystem services and How are ecosystem service risks and opportunities identi-
development goals can mean the difference between a suc- ed? (chapter 3)
cessful strategy and one that fails because of an unexamined How can future ecosystem service changes be explored?
consequence for a freshwater supply, an agricultural product, a (chapter 4)
sacred site, or another ecosystem service. This guide will help How can ecosystem service risks and opportunities be
decision makers recognize the links by demonstrating how to incorporated into development strategies? (chapter 5)
incorporate an Ecosystem Services Approach into existing deci- What policies help sustain ecosystem services? (chapter 5)
sion-making processes. An Ecosystem Services Approach ex-
pands the focus beyond how development affects ecosystems to Our ability to identify, map, measure, and value the benets
include how development depends on ecosystems. In addition that come from ecosystems is increasing. The Millennium
to focusing on how to protect ecosystems from development, Ecosystem Assessmenta four-year United Nations assessment
we can also consider how to invest in managing ecosystems for of the condition and trends of the worlds ecosystems involving
development. more than 1,300 expertsestablished a benchmark. Efforts
There is no single way to implement an Ecosystem Services such as those by The Natural Capital Project on valuation
Approach. The methods presented in this guide are illustrative; (Natural Capital Project 2007), IUCN on payments (IUCN
decision makers need not use all of them in order to strengthen 2006), and the World Resources Institute on mainstream-
their decisions. The guide builds on existing experience with ing ecosystem services in public and private sector decisions
multiple-use ecosystem management, ecosystem restoration, provide new methods that decision makers can use to make the
and conservation planning, but identies ecosystem services links between ecosystems and development. As we are better
more explicitly. able to describe and value the benets of ecosystem services,

Key Terms Used in this Guide

An ecosystem is a collection of plants, animals, and micro-organisms interacting with each other and with their non-living environment (CBD
1993). Examples include a rainforest, desert, coral reef, or a cultivated system. A city can be treated as an urban ecosystem.
Ecosystem services are the benets that people get from nature. Examples include fresh water, timber, climate regulation, recreation, and
aesthetic values.
An Ecosystem Services Approach provides a framework by which ecosystem services are integrated into public and private decision mak-
ing. Its implementation typically incorporates a variety of methods, including ecosystem service dependency and impact assessment (chapter
3), valuation (chapter 3), scenarios (chapter 4), and policies and other interventions targeted at sustaining ecosystem services (chapter 5).
These methods are often applied at a watershed or landscape level and frequently involve projecting a decade or more into the future. The
Ecosystem Services Approach builds on the Ecosystem Approach developed under the Convention on Biological Diversity, but further empha-
sizes ecosystem services as the link between ecosystems and development (UNEP 2007).
Development refers to actions that seek to improve human well-being. Development goals are relevant to all countries. Development en-
compasses social, economic, and environmental issues. Thus it includes economic growth, poverty reduction, infrastructure expansion, energy
independence, and adaptation to climate change.
Decision maker refers to anyone whose actions depend on or affect ecosystem services. Decision makers may work at a local, provincial,
national, or international level to achieve development goals (through policies, plans, and projects), or they may be focused on conservation
planning, natural resource management, and environmental protection. Often, they will work with partners at other levels of governance.

IN TROD UC TI ON 2
decision makers can better understand how their actions might people in their daily lives depend on a range of services that
change these services, consider the trade-offs among options, ecosystems provide. These services are fundamental to attaining
and choose policies that sustain services. development goals (see Figure 1.1).
This introduction rst discusses how ecosystem services link Thus, decision makersincluding those whose goals and ac-
development and nature and provides examples of the links. It tions might not at rst seem connected to ecosystemsneed to
then summarizes what the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment examine the dependence and impacts of their goals on ecosystem
found about the current condition and trends of ecosystem services (see Table 1.1). Whether developing a policy to increase
services. Finally, it outlines the variety of entry points for incor- the production of food or biofuel, preparing a coastal develop-
porating ecosystem services in decision-making processes and ment plan, or constructing a water ltration plant, taking ecosys-
describes the rest of the guide. tem services into account can strengthen decisions.
The following four examples illustrate
how improved understanding of the links
ECOSYSTEM SERVICES AND DEVELOPMENT
In the past, environmental decision making has focused
largely on mitigating the impact of mining or dam building,
KEY LEARNINGS
for example, and on establishing areas to protect wildlife and
Human well-being and long-term economic success
its habitat or a scenic river. While important, these activities depend on ecosystem services, the benets that people
are only part of the picture. We need to consider mitigation get from nature.
and protection within a broader approach that recognizes that

Figure 1.1 The Relationship between Development and Ecosystem Services

es sustain de
m Servic velo
sy ste pm
o en
Ec t

De
ve ic es
lop S erv
men
t impacts Ecosystem

3 ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


Table 1.1 Linking Development Goals and Ecosystem Services
Goal Link to dependence on ecosystem services
Adaptation to Climate change alters the quantity, quality, and timing of ecosystem service ows such as fresh water and food. These
climate change changes create vulnerabilities for those individuals, communities, and sectors that depend on the services. Healthy eco-
systems can reduce climate change impacts. Vegetation provides climate regulating services by capturing carbon dioxide
from the atmosphere. Ecosystem services such as water and erosion regulation, natural hazard protection, and pest con-
trol can help protect communities from climate-induced events such as increased oods, droughts, and pest outbreaks.
Energy security Many renewable energy sources, such as biofuels or hydroelectric power, are derived from ecosystems and depend on
natures ability to maintain them. Hydropower, for example, relies on regular water ow as well as erosion control, both
of which depend on intact ecosystems.
Environmental Conservation projects often only consider a few benets of preserving nature. They may emphasize existence values, for
conservation example. Using an ecosystem services framework can help identify the multiple services provided and highlight the ben-
ets that the project will provide to development as well as the benets to conservation. For example, a protected area
may provide biochemicals for pharmaceuticals or pollination for agricultural crops.
Food production Ecosystems are vital to food production, yet there is pressure to increase agricultural outputs in the short-term at the
expense of ecosystems long-term capacity for food production. Intensive use of ecosystems to satisfy needs for food can
erode ecosystems through soil degradation, water depletion, contamination, collapse of sheries, or biodiversity loss.
Freshwater provision Ecosystems help meet peoples need for water by regulating the water cycle, ltering impurities from water, and
regulating the erosion of soil into water. Population growth and economic development have led to rapid water resource
development, however, and many naturally occurring and functioning systems have been replaced with highly modied
and human-engineered systems. Needs for irrigation, domestic water, power, and transport are met at the expense of
rivers, lakes, and wetlands that offer recreation, scenic values, and the maintenance of sheries, biodiversity, and
long-term water cycling.
Health Ecosystem services such as food production, water purication, and disease regulation are vital in reducing child mortality,
improving maternal health, and combating diseases. In addition, changes in ecosystems can inuence the abundance of
human pathogens resulting in outbreaks of diseases such as malaria and cholera, and the emergence of new diseases.
Natural hazard Increasingly, people live in areas that are vulnerable to extreme events such as oods, severe storms, res, and droughts
protection (MA 2005b, 443). The condition of ecosystems affects the likelihood and the severity of extreme events by, for example,
regulating global and regional climates. Healthy ecosystems can also lessen the impact of extreme events by regulating
oods or protecting coastal communities from storms and hurricanes.
Poverty reduction The majority of the worlds 1 billion poorest people live in rural areas. They depend directly on nature for their livelihoods
and well-being: food production, freshwater availability, hazard protection from storms, among other services. Degrada-
tion of these services can mean starvation and death. Investments in ecosystem service maintenance and restoration can
enhance rural livelihoods and be a stepping stone out of poverty.

Sources: Adapted from MA 2005a; MA 2005d; UNDP 2003.

between development and ecosystem services can strengthen Shrimp farming and mangrove
decision making. The rst focuses on food production and losses in Southeast Asia
shrimp farms in Southeast Asia and highlights how unintended The expansion of shrimp aquaculture, particularly in South-
trade-offs among ecosystem services can jeopardize develop- east Asia and Central America, has increased prots for a few
ment goals when ecosystem service dependencies are over- growers, while supplying the global marketplace with low-cost
looked in development strategies. The U.S. agriculture example shrimp. Unfortunately for many coastal communities, the
shows how incentives can be used to encourage farmers to proliferation of shrimp farms has driven widespread destruction
restore or protect ecosystem services that have no market value. and conversion of mangrove forests (Stevenson 1997).
The Indo-German Watershed Development Program illustrates A study of mangrove conversion near Tha Po Village in
how investments in the restoration of ecosystem services can be Thailand compared the economic returns from shrimp farms
an effective strategy for improving the livelihoods and well-be- with those from sustainably managed mangroves. Conversion
ing of poor rural communities. The example from China shows of mangroves to shrimp farms appears the economically sound
how not considering ecosystem services in a national plan can choice when only the values of the shrimp harvest and forest
undermine development goals. products are considered in the economic analyses. However, if
the value of non-marketed ecosystem services from mangroves
(such as coastline protection and spawning ground for wild

IN TROD UC TI ON 4
Figure 1.2 Comparing the Economic and Social Value of Mangroves and Shrimp Farms

40,000

35,000 Total net present value per Ha (In US$)


Economic value: Shrimp farm 8,340
30,000 Intact mangrove 823
Social Value: Shrimp farm -5,443
25,000
Intact mangrove 35,696
Coastline protection
($34,453)
20,000
Net present value in US$/Ha

15,000

10,000
Net income from shrimps
Fish spawning ground ($1,164)
5,000 ($420)
Forest products Subsidies for inputs
($823) ($7,176)
0
Intact mangrove Pollution
($951)
-5,000 Restoration
Marketed ecosystem services ($5,656)
Nonmarketed ecosystem services Shrimp farm
-10,000
Subsidies/externalities

-15,000 These numbers are based on a 10% discount rate over a 20-year period and are derived from Sathirathai and Barbier 2001.

sh) is considered, the intact mangroves become the more U.S. farmers and soil conservation
sound development choice (see Figure 1.2). Agricultural production is a major industry in the United States,
People in Tha Po Village, and other poor coastal communi- but the production of crops, livestock, and biofuel often degrades
ties where mangrove conversion is occurring, bear most of the other ecosystem services such as erosion control, nutrient cycling,
costs associated with diminished ecosystem services, includ- and freshwater supply (MA 2005b: 831-32; Marshall and
ing lost forest resources, reduced coastline protection from Greenhalgh 2006). In 1985, the U.S. government established
storms, lower shery yields, and water quality degradation the Conservation Reserve Program to help restore these degraded
from aquaculture pollution. Yet they receive few of the benets, services. Through this program farmers are compensated for
which primarily accrue to shrimp aquaculture operators and retiring cropland for up to 15 years and establishing conservation
distant consumers who enjoy subsidized shrimp (Sathirathai and practices. In addition to receiving rent, participants receive tech-
Barbier 2001). If residents had been effectively involved in the nical training in how to implement best management practices.
decision and brought information about their use of ecosystem In 2006 more than 3 million acres of farmland were enrolled
services to include in a cost-benet analysis, might a more equi- in the program. Monitoring systems have demonstrated im-
table and economically sound decision have been made? provements in water quality, carbon storage, and soil retention.
The program is alleviating some of the nations biggest environ-
mental problems: Chesapeake Bay pollution, New York Citys
drinking water quality, and declining populations of Pacic
Northwest salmon (FSA 2007; Perrot-Matre and Davis 2001).
The European Union has a similar program under its Common
Agricultural Policy that pays farmers for undertaking measures
that meet development goals (Hanrahan and Zinn 2005).

5 ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


Encroaching desert in Western China
Minqin County in Western China historically served as a natural
barrier against the dryness of the Tengger and Badain Jaran
deserts. In the 1950s, Chairman Mao implemented a national
plan to boost food production entailing cultivation, deforesta-
tion, irrigation, and reclamation. The long-term consequences
on other ecosystem services such as water regulation from forests
and natural water supply were devastating. The Minqin oasis has
been slowly swallowed by deserts.
The nearby Hongyashan reservoir has also dried up, and
groundwater is expected to run out in 17 years. This overex-
ploitation of groundwater, along with the insufcient re-sup-
plying of surface water, has led to water quality problems,
making the majority of water in Minqin undrinkable. The
Chinese government has spent nearly US$9 billion ghting the
desertication in Minqin by replanting forests, reestablishing
desert vegetation, removing dams, and enforcing logging and
grazing bans. The government is also funding the relocation of
area residents; in Northern Minqin, entire villages have been
abandoned. It is too early to tell if the restoration projects will
ROB IN MUR P HY
have the intended effects (China Daily 2005; Gluckman 2000;
Kahn 2006).
Such desertication, the degradation of dryland ecosystems
Soil and water conservation measures in Darewadi, India from overexploitation and land mismanagement, is a risk to
have helped to increase land value four-fold. an estimated 2 billion people globallyone third of Earths
population (AP 2007). If the problem continues unchecked,
Watershed restoration in India to the next decade could see 50 million people forced to leave
support sustainable rural livelihoods their homes (Adeel et al. 2006).
Before an Indo-German Watershed Development Program
was launched in 1996, Darewadi village in the Indian state of
Maharashtra relied on tanker trucks of water during periods of CONDITION AND TRENDS OF
water scarcity. Technical training and leadership development ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
enabled the village to adopt new ways to mitigate the effects of Examples of local deg-
drought. The villagers chose efforts that included tree planting, radation of ecosystem ser- KEY LEARNINGS
grazing bans, and soil and water conservation measures. vices, whether a shery in Worldwide, many ecosystem
After ve years, the villages restoration efforts were self- coastal Thailand or ground- services are degraded or in
sustaining. Once-bare hillsides surrounding the village are now water depletion in a China decline.
replanted with trees. The area supports nine to ten months of county, are part of a larger,
agricultural employment a year (compared with three to four serious trend revealed by
months before the restoration project); extensive new irrigation the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: about
supports more crop varieties; and the value of cultivated land two thirds of the 24 ecosystem services assessed globally are
has increased four-fold. The village has not needed trucked-in degraded (see Table 1.2). This degradation will likely grow
water in recent drought years. The Indo-German Watershed signicantly worse in the rst half of the 21st century (MA
Development Program has funded more than 145 similar proj- 2005a).
ects in 24 districts, successfully mobilizing villagers to restore Examples of global changes in ecosystems over the past 50
their watersheds (DSouza and Lobo 2004; WOTR 2002; years include:
WOTR 2005). Changes in land use have signicantly altered the sup-
ply of ecosystem services. More land was converted to
cropland between 1950 and 1980 than in the 150 years
from 1700 to 1850 (MA 2005a:2). The societal value of
converted land is often less than that of sustainably man-
aged natural systems, which provide a greater variety of
ecosystem services.

INT R ODU CT IO N 6
Table 1.2 Ecosystem Services: Global Status and Trends

Ecosystem Service Type Degraded Mixed Enhanced


Provisioning the goods or products Capture sheries Timber Crops
obtained from ecosystems
Wild foods Fiber Livestock
Wood fuel Aquaculture
Genetic resources
Biochemicals
Freshwater

Regulating the benets obtained Air quality regulation Water regulation (for example, Carbon sequestration
from an ecosystems control of ood protection)
Regional and local
natural processes
climate regulation Disease regulation
Erosion regulation
Water purication
Pest regulation
Pollination
Natural hazard regulation

Cultural the nonmaterial benets people Spiritual and religious Recreation and ecotourism
obtain from ecosystem services values
Aesthetic values

Source: Adapted from MA 2005a.

Freshwater scarcity is an accelerating condition for able than ever to extreme events as demonstrated by the
more than 1 billion people, affecting food production, high loss of life and economic losses from natural disas-
human health, and economic development. The most ters such as the Asian Tsunami in 2004 (FAO 2004; MA
important sources of renewable freshwater are forest and 2005a; Danielsen et al. 2005).
mountain ecosystems, which provide water to two thirds
of the global population (Earthwatch Institute et al. 2006). These ndings suggest that ecosystem services are often over-
The amount of water impounded by dams has qua- looked or assumed to be available as development decisions are
drupled since 1960, so that three to six times as much made; the attainment of development goals is consequently of-
water is now held in reservoirs as in natural rivers (MA ten in jeopardy. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment found,
2005a:2). Tens of millions of people have been displaced for example, that continued degradation of ecosystem services is
as a result and more have suffered a loss of the resources a barrier to achieving the Millennium Development Goals for
on which their livelihoods depend (World Commission on poverty reduction, which guide development institutions.
Dams 2000). While the above ndings are global, they reect similar
Worldwide sh landings peaked in the late 1980s patterns of changes at the local, national, and regional scales.
and have since remained static, even though demand Users of the guide are encouraged to think about the relevance
has never been greater. The expansion of aquaculture has of these ndings to their own context and seek out information
countered some of this shortfall, contributing 43 percent on local ecosystem condition and trends. On a global scale, the
of sh production in 2004 (FAO 2007). Yet this expansion Millennium Ecosystem Assessment lays out four main ndings
has caused other problems (see shrimp farming example in (see Box 1.1).
the previous section) (MA 2005a).
Nearly a quarter of mangroves and 20 percent of coral
reefs have been lost since about 1980, together with
their many services including their capacity to buffer
coastal communities from storms. People are more vulner-

7 ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


Although by design the Millennium Ecosystem Assess- ENTRY POINTS FOR MAINSTREAMING
ment stopped short of prescribing policy recommendations, it ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
outlined the range of available policy responses to the declining Given that development goals depend on ecosystem ser-
state of ecosystem services and also prepared four scenarios to vices and that many of these services are in decline, decision
describe the range of possible future outcomes (for an intro- makers need to deliberately take into account the connec-
duction to scenarios see chapter 4). The Assessment found that tions between development and ecosystems. Entry points for
in three of four global scenarios signicant changes in policies incorporating an Ecosystem Services Approach into existing
mitigated many of the negative consequences on ecosystem decision-making processes occur at all levels of governance
services. However, the policy changes required were large and and are important for both development ofcials and those
are not currently underway. Degradation can rarely be re- approaching problems from an environmental perspective.
versed without addressing factors such as migration, economic Many entry points are at the national or provincial level.
growth, technological change, the legal framework, and the role Some, such as the Millennium Development Goals, or
of the public, the Assessment concluded. Past actions to slow or international trade and investment, are at the global level but
reverse degradation of ecosystem services have yielded signi- usually have their more detailed counterparts at the national
cant benets, but the improvements have not kept pace with or local level.
increasing pressures (MA 2005a). Project decisions are likely to be informed by broad
national policy and international commitments, although spe-
cic permitting decisions are often made at the sub-national,
watershed, or local level. Opportunities for mainstreaming
ecosystem services can be categorized into four intersecting
KEY LEARNINGS entry points: national and sub-national policies, economic
Reversing ecosystem degradation is possible, but will and scal incentives, sector policies, and governance (see Table
require concerted and unprecedented efforts.
1.3; policies for each category are discussed in more detail in
chapter 5, Table 5.1).

Box 1.1 Main Findings of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

Humans have radically altered ecosystems in just 50 years


In the last half of the 20th century, humans changed ecosystems more rapidly and extensively than in any comparable period of history,
primarily to meet growing needs for food, freshwater, timber, ber, and fuel. Almost one third of global land is now under cultivation (MA
2005a:32). One result is that more than half of the synthetic nitrogen fertilizer ever used on the planet has been applied to crops in the
past two decades (Green et al. 2004). As much as 50 percent of this is lost, contributing to rapidly rising nitrate concentrations in rivers,
lakes, and coastal areas and creating dead zones where no living organisms are found (Welch and Graham 1999). An increase in atmo-
spheric carbon dioxide concentration by one third since 1750, two thirds of which occurred since 1959, has great potential to alter natural
systems through climate change (MA 2005a:1314).

Ecosystem change has brought gains in human well-being, but at high costs to natural capital
Ecosystem changes have resulted in signicant benets to humans, including improvements in health and a reduction in the proportion of
malnourished people. However, these gains have come at an increasing cost. The Assessments ndings indicate that increases in provisioning
services that have a market price have inadvertently degraded other ecosystem services. These degraded services are often regulating services,
such as water ltration, coastal protection, and erosion control, that have no value in the marketplace until they are lost.

Further unsustainable practices will threaten development goals


Ecosystem degradation, greater risk of ecosystem collapse, and exacerbation of poverty, particularly among the resource-dependent poor, are
all affected by the choice of development strategies. If these problems continue unchecked, they will undermine the gains in human well-be-
ing. The Assessment concluded that degradation of ecosystems presents a signicant barrier to achieving development goals worldwide. Rural
poverty and ecosystem degradation, for example, often go hand in hand.

Workable solutions exist, but require major policy changes


It will be a signicant challenge to reverse ecosystem degradation while meeting the demands of a growing population and economy, but
options do exist. The Assessment found that major changes in policies, institutions, and practices, although on a scale well beyond anything
under way at present, can reduce some of the negative effects of rising consumption of ecosystem services as well as provide improvements
in human well-being.

INT RO DUC TIO N 8


Table 1.3 Entry Points for Mainstreaming Ecosystem Services
Entry points Ministry/Agency/Organization Examples of decision processes
National and Development & planning Poverty reduction strategies, land-use planning, water supply, and sanitation
sub-national
policies and Environment Protected area creation, climate adaptation strategies
plans
Treasury National budgets, public expenditure reviews, audits

Physical planning, emergency planning, Integratedecosystem management of coasts, river basins, forest landscapes,
and response and watersheds

Economic Finance Subsidies, tax credits, payments for ecosystem services, import duties, and
and scal tariffs
incentives Budget ofce Tax policies to support easements or promote alternative energy technology,
pricing regulations for water

Sector policies Commerce and industry Corporate codes of conduct/standards, assessment of new technologies
and plans
Science and technology Applied research, technology transfer, business capacity building

Agriculture Extension services, best management practices

Forestry Forest sector action programs, mapping initiatives, concession management

Environment/ State
of the environment reports, strategic environmental assessments, environ-
Natural resources mental impact assessments, information/tools, legal instruments

Governance Prime ministers or mayors ofce, Decentralizationpolicies, free press, civil society, accountability of government
justice ministries, legislature, through elections, access to information and decisions, judicial review, perfor-
local government bodies mance indicators

The examples provided for each entry point are not intended to be exhaustive, but rather illustrate the
variety of ways ecosystem service considerations can be incorporated into development decision processes.

National and sub-national policies: The preparation of


national and sub-national trade, economic growth, or
immigration policies provides important entry points for KEY LEARNINGS
managing the cumulative demand and impacts on ecosys- There are many entry points in current decision
tem services from individual or multiple sectors. Ministries making processes to link economic and social goals
with ecosystem services.
of the environment, treasury, development and planning,
among others, may play a role.
Economic and scal incentives: Fiscal measures such as
subsidies, taxes, and pricing inuence decisions through- a free press, and requirements to
out the economy, from rms and farms to factories and provide information, including
households. They can be designed to create incentives to regular indicators of ecosystem health, to the public.
sustain and efciently use ecosystem services, as well as All branches of government also have a role in provid-
to create disincentives for activities that drive ecosystem ing oversight. Such mechanisms enable citizens to hold
degradation. governments and business accountable for their use and
Sector policies: Ministries of commerce and industry, management of ecosystems.
science and technology, agriculture and forestry, among
others can play an effective role in advancing policies
and actions that sustain ecosystem services. Environment ABOUT THIS GUIDE
agencies can work with other government agencies and This guide is one of several publications by the World Re-
departments to develop information, tools, and analyses sources Institute focused on mainstreaming ecosystem services in
that help make the connection between ecosystem services public and private decisions. It introduces an Ecosystem Services
and the attainment of sector goals. Approach aimed at helping policymakers at all levels and sec-
Governance: Strong governance is at the heart of sustaining tors use the concept of ecosystem services in making decisions.
ecosystem services. This includes public participation in Accordingly, while it introduces methods to incorporate the con-
decisions that affect or depend on ecosystem services, cept of ecosystem services into different types of decision-mak-
ing, it stops short of providing detailed methodological guidance
on how to assess the conditions and trends of ecosystem services.

9 ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/KEITH DUMBLE
The view from Victoria Peak in Hong Kong dramatically illustrates the intersection of development and nature.

A methods manual under development by the United Na- ecosystem change. It follows the story of Rio Grandes Mayor
tions Environment Programme-World Conservation Monitoring and Secretary of Environment as they confront two challenges:
Centre will provide more detailed technical guidance for scien- how to develop the citys economy through the implementation
tists who conduct ecosystem assessments. The World Resources of a national goal on biofuel expansion and how to address the
Institute is also producing a separate guide on how to integrate consequences of ecosystem change for their city. Each chapter
an Ecosystem Services Approach in business decision making. closes with an installment of The Decision to illustrate the main
Ecosystem service-based decision-making tools are still at an points of the chapter. The narrative draws on real life experi-
early stage of development, and the examples of their applica- ence and examples. Its ctional nature allows the exploration of
tion in actual decision making are limited. This guide attempts a variety of issues, angles, and conicts that would not other-
to circumvent this limitation by drawing on both real and wise be possible within a single case study.
ctional case studies to illustrate its points. It is a rst take on A CD-ROM containing the technical and synthesis
practical steps to incorporate consideration of natures benets volumes of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and a
into development decisions and will need updating as more PowerPoint presentation with illustrative gures and graphics
research and experience become available. That said, while is enclosed. This resource can be used in conjunction with
research is still emerging on how changes to ecosystems alter this guide both as a reference source and to help make the
their capacity to provide services, enough is known for decision case for mainstreaming ecosystem services in
makers to start incorporating ecosystem services into their decision-making processes.
goals and strategies. Such action will support both robust and
sustainable development decisions and healthy ecosystems.
The next chapter in this guide discusses how a decision-
making framework linking ecosystems with human well-being ACTION POINTS
can be used to strengthen and organize a decision-making l Review how goals depend on and affect ecosystem services
process. Chapter 3 describes how to identify the ecosystem and how an Ecosystem Services Approach can strengthen
decision making and help achieve these and other goals.
services most relevant to a development decision, how to collect
l Use PowerPoint presentation on enclosed CD-ROM to make
information on their condition and trends and how to assess
the case for using an Ecosystem Services Approach.
the resulting risks and opportunities for a decision. Chapter 4
introduces scenario planning as an approach for identifying eco-
system service trade-offs in the future. Chapter 5 concludes with
guidance on how to select policies to sustain ecosystem services.
The guide also includes The Decision: A Story about Ecosys-
tem Services. This tale of an imaginary city, Rio Grande, charts
one communitys efforts to reconcile development and

INTRODUCTION 10
1
The
Decision A Story about Ecosystem Services
Where
the Secretary
connects
ecosystems
and well-being
So the bottomline is, you dont know. said
the Mayor.
We know the climate is changing. Scien-
tists from around the world say so in a report
released last year, the Secretary of Environ-
ment began. We think that this region might
see more precipitation in the next decades.
The Mayor was now looking out the win-
dow and quickly losing interest. The winter had
been unusually rainy, especially higher up in the
mountains, and the previous month Rio Grande
had seen the worst ooding in living memory,
effectively isolating the city for four days and
forcing the shut down of the water purication
plant. The aftermath of this event had occupied
much of the Mayors agenda for the last month,
and now he wanted to know why it had hap-
pened, and whether it would happen again.
Weve been busy with recovery tasks and
havent had time to look into the causes of this.
But well come up with a complete report in the
next few weeks, said the Secretary, knowing
she had just missed an opportunity to explain
that there was a link between deforestation
upstream and the oods of the previous month.
OK. Have that report ready for next weeks
cabinet meeting. Ill make room on the agenda for
this. Would ten minutes sufce? said the Mayor.

11 E C OS Y S T E M SE R V I CE S : A G U I D E F O R D E C I SI O N MA K ERS
Forest. 50%
lost to agricul-
Of course not, thought the Secretary. Sure, she said as Agriculture. tural expansion;
Rio Grande.
Transitioning budding tourism
she walked out. from local sup- industry.
Pop: 150,000
plier to export and growing.
In the lobby she noticed two tall men wearing expensive suits. Industrial park. GDP US$1500
Mostly light producer.
Please go ahead, the Mayor will see you now, said the receptionist. manufacturing,
per capita; 20%
below poverty
Foreigners, the receptionist said in reply to the Secretarys some export line.
production.
inquisitive look. They are here about the biofuel complex.
The what?! The Secretary left the ofce furious. As usual,
she hadnt been informed about development plans. Her ofce
was never part of the big decisionsin this case to build a bio-
fuel plant that was to be part of a new national goal to increase
revenue from biofuel exports. She was expected to supervise
environmental impact assessments, invariably done by outside
consultants only after the decisions had been made, and then
struggle with inspections and sanctions every time there was an
accident. But her opinion did not seem to count when it came to Traditional
investment decisions. shing
community.

Back in her ofce the Secretary of Environment convened a


staff meeting four people, including herself.
Small port.
So, did you explain to the Mayor that we need to focus Pressure to
more on ecosystem management and less on public works? expand; most
goods go by
one aide started. road to larger A map of Rio Grande
They want to build a biofuel complex, announced the city port.

Secretary.
Ah Then they better start building big levees, too.
Why?
Precipitation is already on the rise and the agricultural frontier keeps expanding. An additional
incentive to grow fuel crops will be the end of the remaining forest, and then we can expect more
ooding. You did explain to the Mayor that the oods might be related to deforestation, didnt you?
I tried.
The water treatment budget will need to go up, too. With more agriculture and fewer trees upstream water ltration
by the forest will suffer and the water will reach the city dirtier not good for the campaign A special city to live in
Is the Director of Tourism and Recreation aware of this? There goes their plan to promote ecotourism.
And I suppose the lobby to expand the city port will revive. How do you think that will play with the shing community?
What about the price of food? Have they thought that biofuel crops might compete with food production?
Population growth is already putting pressure on prices here.
Yes, plus almost all the crops are now exported, and I suppose the biofuel will be, too. But the costs of environ-
mental degradation are borne here. Have you been to the southern neighborhood since the ood? Its a mess. We are
now expecting an epidemic there. And migration from the countryside remains strong.
I think they are not aware of how much our health and our economy depend on a healthy river basin. They just
dont look beyond the municipal boundary, and yet some of our greatest problems come from outside.
That nal comment gave the Secretary an idea. That was how she needed to frame it: the Mayor had to under-
stand that the river was more than a river and that the previous months oods had been something more than just
a ood. This new renery offered her a perfect opportunity to get involved in decisions about the citys development.
The links between future biofuel production, future deforestation, future oods, and health needed to be explored.
The Mayor was not aware that the city was part of a whole system that had sustained the exponential growth of the last
few decades. Clean water, fertile land, abundant crops and sh, even recreation and ood controlall these benets resulted
from a functioning system, and all had a value that was being overlooked. If the system failed, the consequences would be felt
by the population, starting with the poor. Quality of life in the city would drop, and the Mayor would know it on Election Day.
Alright, she said. We need to prepare a presentation for next weeks cabinet. Lets organize all of these ideas.

THE DECISION 12
Make the connections between
C H A P T E R

Lead Authors
Neville Ash
Nicolas Lucas
2
ecosystems and development......................................................... 15
Contributing Authors
Build effective processes for assessing Philip Bubb
ecosystem services and selecting policies ...................................... 19 Charles Iceland
Frances Irwin
Apply the framework and principles: Janet Ranganathan
A mini case study............................................................................. 21 Ciara Raudsepp-Hearne

PHOTOS BY DIGITALVISION AND GETTY IMAGES


Framing the Link
between Development and
Ecosystem Services

I
n addition to detailing the conditions and trends of eco- guidance on using the principles of credibility and legitimacy
system services worldwide, the Millennium Ecosystem to design effective participatory processes. It concludes with a
Assessment created a conceptual framework that is useful mini case study of hydropower production in British Columbia,
in taking an Ecosystem Services Approach. This chapter Canada to illustrate the application of the framework and the
begins by introducing the framework and then provides benets of building effective participatory processes.

Figure 2.1 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Conceptual Framework of Interactions Among


Ecosystem Services, Human Well-being, and Drivers of Change

Source: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

FRA M IN G TH E LIN K BETWEEN D EV ELOPM EN T A N D EC OSYSTEM SER VICES 14


MAKE THE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN from applying the framework. While experience with using this
ECOSYSTEMS AND DEVELOPMENT framework is still limited, interest is growing in taking an Ecosys-
Decision makers as diverse as mayors, national economists, tem Services Approach to support decision making, within govern-
natural resource managers, and conservation planners can use ment agencies and other organizations (see Box 2.1) and elsewhere.
the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment framework (see Figure What follows is a discussion of the elements of the frame-
2.1) to explore the links between ecosystems and development, work and the relationships among them. It uses the Rio Grande
gaining a better understanding of how development goals both story to illustrate how a decision maker
affect and depend on ecosystem services. Those working in the can apply the framework to design more
development community can start an analysis with elements of
human well-being such as health or food and make the connec-
tions to ecosystem services. The environmental conservation
community, on the other hand, can start with the ecosystem KEY LEARNINGS
services and use the framework to assess the implications of The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment framework
conservation on development and human well-being. serves as a decision-making tool for linking ecosystem
and development goals.
Important relationships between human well-being and eco-
system servicesoften not initially apparentare likely to emerge

Box 2.1 Applications of an Ecosystem Services Approach

Rick Linthurst, national program director for Leadership Council in Seattle, are working to develop an Ecosys-
ecology at the U.S. Environmental Protection tem Services Approach in the Puget Sound region of Washington
Agency, Ofce of Research and Development, is state. The Puget Sound Partnership, a public-private authority
leading a major research initiative to promote established by the Washington legislature with the governors
proactive decisionmaking to conserve eco- support, is developing a plan to restore the Puget Sound ecosys-
system services to meet human needs. This tem. The partnership is focused on incorporating ecosystem
programs 200 scientists are working to quantify services information into critical public decisions and public
ecosystem services using dynamic maps, sce- finance opportunities to meet the restoration goals (Puget
nario building, and predictive models. This work Sound Partnership 2007; M. Ruckelshaus, personal communica-
includes assessing the suite of services associ- tion, September 17,2007).
ated with freshwater and coastal wetlands, assessing the effects of
reactive nitrogen on ecosystem services, and four place-based studies
to develop methods to implement the concept of ecosystem service
districts for managing multiple services (U.S. EPA 2007a; R. Linthurst, Richard Thackway, of Australias Bureau of
personal communication, August 13, 2007). Rural Sciences, is leading an effort to document
the ecosystem services provided by vegeta-
tion across Australia. The project identies the
national status and trends of ecosystem services
Lana Robinson, in the government of Alberta, is and links these ndings to different forms of
undertaking an assessment of 20 ecosystem ser- management. The goal of the project is to in-
vices in the southern region of Alberta, Canada. form regional priority setting and inuence
The effort identies and ranks the 20 services in investment in the maintenance, restoration,
terms of relative importance to the region. The as- and management of vegetation to better
sessment establishes scientically that changes in meet sustainable development outcomes (Commonwealth of Austra-
natural landscapes affect the type, quantity, and lia 2007; R. Thackway, personal communication, August 9, 2007).
quality of ecosystem services provided. The assess-
ment provides information on the consequences
of various land use decisions and the link
between the natural landscapes and the economic health and Rodrigo Victor, of the Forestry Institute
quality of life in southern Alberta (Government of Alberta 2007; K. (Instituto Florestal) of the State of So Paulo,
Hughes-Field, personal communication, August 10, 2007). Brazil, is using an Ecosystem Services Ap-
proach in workshops and other events to alter
how people talk and think about the So
Paulo City Green Belt Biosphere Reserve
Mary Ruckelshaus, and the ecosystem services it provides to
of the U.S. National 23 million residents. The group has hosted
Oceanic and Atmospheric over a dozen major events since the Millen-
Administrations North- nium Ecosystem Assessment was released; the
west Fisheries Science approach has allowed for a shared vocabulary and understanding
Center, and her father, among diverse stakeholders, from local citizens to water basin
William Ruckelshaus, managers (Instituto Florestal 2007; R. Victor, personal communica-
chair of the Puget Sound tion, March 30, 2007).

15 ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


robust and sustainable strategies to achieve development goals
and sustain ecosystem services.

Human well-being
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment framework places hu-
man well-being in the upper left-hand corner to emphasize the
focus on people and how ecosystems support development goals.
This is where the decision maker preparing a national budget
or awarding a forest or mine concession enters the framework.
It is where the Mayor of Rio Grande and his goal of creating a
more livable city by reducing the risk of oods and growing the
economy through a new biofuels sector nds a starting point.
The framework lists ve components of well-being:
basic material for a good life (adequate livelihood, food,
shelter, other goods);
health (strength, feeling well, access to clean air and water);
good social relations (social cohesion, mutual respect, ability

G E TTY IMAGES
to help others);
security (personal safety, access to resources, safety from
disasters); and
freedom of choice and action (ability to control personal In addition to sequestering carbon from the atmosphere, ecosystems also
regulate local climate by inuencing local air temperature and moisture.
circumstances).

In the Rio Grande story, the elements of well-being leading cultural servicesextends the focus of decisions beyond the
to the goal of a livable city include security (ood protection) provisioning services such as crops or timber. It allows equal
and health (clean water). Basic material for a good life derives attention to frequently overlooked regulating and cultural ser-
from both shers on the coast and farmers inland and from vices such as ood control or recreation that now lack a value
jobs at the biofuel renery. Rio Grande must also take into in the marketplace,1 although a growing body of research aims
account the national goal to increase production of biofuels, to facilitate the valuing of such services, as noted in chapter 3.
another element of basic material for a good life. As in this The Assessment also dened a fourth category of service:
story, the elements of well-being are often intertwined. the supporting services (see Table 2.1). These are underlying
Once a decision maker has examined the goal in relation to processes such as formation of soil, photosynthesis, and nutri-
human well-being, the next step is to identify the ecosystem ser- ent cycling. Since, by denition, supporting services are not
vices on which reaching that goal relies and how it impacts them. directly used by people, these services were not assessed.
The thinking as to whether supporting services can be
Ecosystem services incorporated into an Ecosystem Services Approach is still at an
Focusing on ecosystem services allows a decision maker to view early stage. The relevance of these services is typically real-
services of nature as an input into a strategy to achieve a goal, ized through the other ecosystem services they support. The
much like physical or human capital. In the Rio Grande story, it agriculture sector, in particular, may nd it valuable to consider
enables the Secretary of Environment to move beyond the stereo- supporting services, such as nutrient cycling and soil forma-
type of protector of birds and trees to become a key player in tion, given the direct interaction between agriculture practices
sustaining Rio Grandes long-term social and economic vitality. and these services.
As noted in chapter 1, increasing the ability of decision Analysis of the different types of ecosystem services can help
makers to understand how ecosystems provide services and to reveal trade-offs across the services. Ecosystems are frequently
estimate their value to people and development goals underlies altered with the intent of increasing the supply of provisioning
an Ecosystem Services Approach. The Millennium Ecosystem services, as when a forest is cleared for cropland. The result is
Assessment contributed to this understanding by evaluating 24 often a decrease in the capacity of these ecosystems to provide
ecosystem services (see Table 1.2 for a summary and Table 2.1
for a detailed listing). These 24 were selected both because they 1
For the purpose of establishing ecosystem service accounts, other researchers have
proposed denitions of ecosystem services rooted in economic principles, comparable to
have been signicantly affected by recent ecosystem change and conventions for GDP goods and services (Boyd and Banzhaf 2006).
because human well-being is likely to be greatly affected as a
result of their degradation or enhancement (MA 2005a:45).
Considering these 24 ecosystem services in the three catego-
ries evaluated by the Assessmentprovisioning, regulating, and

FRA M IN G TH E LIN K BETWEEN D EV ELOPM EN T A N D EC OSYSTEM SER VICES 16


Figure 2.2 The Links between Ecosystem Services and Human Well-being

CONSTITUENTS OF WELL-BEING

ECOSYSTEM SERVICES Security


PERSONAL SAFETY
Provisioning SECURE RESOURCE ACCESS
FOOD SECURITY FROM DISASTERS
FRESH WATER
WOOD AND FIBER
FUEL
... Basic material
for good life Freedom
ADEQUATE LIVELIHOODS of choice
Supporting Regulating SUFFICIENT NUTRITIOUS FOOD and action
CLIMATE REGULATION SHELTER
NUTRIENT CYCLING ACCESS TO GOODS OPPORTUNITY TO BE
SOIL FORMATION FLOOD REGULATION
ABLE TO ACHIEVE
PRIMARY PRODUCTION DISEASE REGULATION
WHAT AN INDIVIDUAL
... WATER PURIFICATION
VALUES DOING
... Health
AND BEING
STRENGTH
FEELING WELL
Cultural ACCESS TO CLEAN AIR
AESTHETIC AND WATER
SPIRITUAL
EDUCATIONAL
RECREATIONAL Good social relations
... SOCIAL COHESION
MUTUAL RESPECT
ABILITY TO HELP OTHERS
LIFE ON EARTH - BIODIVERSITY
Source: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

ARROWS COLOR ARROWS WIDTH


Potential for mediation by Intensity of linkages between ecosystem
socioeconomic factors services and human well-being
Low Weak

Medium Medium

High Strong

regulating and cultural services. By including the full range encourages a decision maker to take a broader look. How does
of services, the framework claries the task of managing such the goal, for example, of improving food supply or export
trade-offs. In Rio Grande, for example, the national govern- income, relate to other goals such as timber supply and how
ment has set a goal to increase a provisioning service, biofuel. do those goals in turn depend on and affect ecosystem services
Yet the city is concerned about clean water and ood protec- such as ood protection and clean water? Once aware of the
tion, and so weighs the costs and benets of converting more overlapping links to ecosystem services, a decision maker can
land to crops for biofuel as well as jobs from a biofuel complex try to develop policies that complement each other and cohere.
versus the opportunity to continue to employ the wetlands Ecosystem services are sometimes confused with biodiversity.
regulating services of water ltration and hazard protection and Biodiversityor life on earth, including the variability among
their aesthetic services that support tourism. living organisms within species, between species, and between
Some of the links between ecosystem services and human ecosystemsis not itself an ecosystem service. Rather, biodiver-
well-being are stronger than others (see Figure 2.2). It is these sity serves as the foundation for all ecosystem services. Both wild
links that policy measures seek to inuence by addressing the and managed ecosystems contribute to biodiversity. The value
drivers of ecosystem change. Decision makers assess how some people place on biodiversity for its own value is captured
these links, which vary from place to place, play out in their under the cultural ecosystem services of ethical and existence
locale. Development goals often focus on improving a single values. Other ecosystem services that are directly dependent on
constituent of human well-being in isolation. The framework key components of biodiversity include food, genetic resources,
timber, biomass fuel, and ecotourism.
The specic links between biodiversity and individual ecosys-
tem services are profuse and varied. The Assessment found that

17 ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


Box 2.2 Biodiversity and the Provision of
Natural Pest Control 1975

Increasing biodiversity in low-diversity agricultural systems can


enhance natural pest control and reduce the dependency and costs
associated with applying pesticides. It can also reduce the need
for other inputs, such as irrigation and fertilizer associated with
monocultures. There are additional benets of high-biodiversity
agriculture as well, including cultural and aesthetic values (MA
2005g:29). However, not all changes to species composition are
good for agriculture. Negative impacts can result from the intro-
duction of exotic invasive weeds or vectors of diseases as well as
from crop raiding by wild animals.

species composition and population size matter more than species


numbers when it comes to ecosystem services (MA 2005g). The I M AG E S B Y U N E P 2 0 0 5
quality of available protein and the abundance of wild foods, for
example, may inuence human nutrition more than species num- 2003
bers. Changes in biodiversity can directly inuence an ecosystem
service such as natural pest control (see Box 2.2). Despite some
uncertainty about the links between changes in components of
biodiversity and specic ecosystem services, it is clear that the dis-
tribution and variety of biodiversity in its many forms is essential
for the functioning of ecosystems and the supply of ecosystem
services. Considering biodiversity can help decision makers focus
on more sustainable choices when examining the relationship
between ecosystem services and well-being (MA 2005g).

Direct and indirect drivers


of ecosystem change
Drivers are the factorsnatural or humanthat cause ecosys-
tem change. This element of the Millennium Ecosystem As- Satellite images of Bolivia showing land conversion for agriculture.
sessment framework helps a decision maker organize the drivers
relevant to the achievement of any given goal. A decision maker can inuence some drivers, but at the
The framework includes two types of drivers, direct and in- same time other drivers may be affecting the condition of the
direct. Direct drivers are physical changes that can be identied ecosystem services of concern. Which drivers decision makers
and monitored. The Assessment lists the following examples: can inuence often depends on the government level at which
changes in local land use and land cover (land conversion, they work. Knowledge and inuence over some drivers likely
modication of river ow and water extraction); rests with other levels of government or groups. For example,
species introductions and removals; individual farmers decide how much fertilizer to use (a direct
discharge of pollutants and overuse of fertilizers; driver of ecosystem change), while a nance minister might
harvest of plants and animals (and other species); and inuence the global prices of the farmers commodities (an
climate variability and change. indirect driver). A careful review of the drivers reveals the part-
nerships that are essential to understanding and inuencing the
Indirect drivers operate by altering the level or rate of change mechanisms by which ecosystems change.
of one or more direct drivers. The Assessment lists ve indirect For Rio Grande, indirect drivers such as global trade
drivers: (economic) and changes in population growth and migration
demographic (population growth and distribution); (demographic) have led to land use changes that have directly
economic (globalization, markets); reduced the extent of wetlands, along with their ltration and
sociopolitical (governance and legal framework); water ow services. The Mayor partners with other cities and
science and technologies (agricultural technologies); and national authorities to address these issues that involve other
cultural and religious (choices about what and how much time and spatial scales.
to consume).

FRA M IN G TH E LIN K BETWEEN D EV ELOPM EN T A N D EC OSYSTEM SER VICES 18


Spatial and temporal scales AAG 2003). Similarly, an analysis of forest policy at the
A key feature of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment national level is likely to focus on the value of timber to the
framework is its incorporation of multiple spatial and temporal national economy. It may consider ood control and water
scales. Spatial scales may be local, national, regional, or global. ltration. A local analysis is more likely to identify non-timber
Temporal scales consider the short term (days, weeks or months) products such as nuts and the cultural value of landscape as
through medium term (months to years) to long term (decades important services. Scenarios, as discussed in chapter 4, provide
to centuries). These spatial and temporal scales apply not only a good way to explore what may happen at a range of spatial
to the drivers, as discussed above, but also to human well-being and temporal scales.
and ecosystem services, and the interactions among them. Assessments need to examine changes in ecosystem services
Development aimed at improving human well-being can over the long term as well as the short term because dramatic
be initiated at levels from the local to the international. Most decline from which it is difcult to recover may occur as an
often local projects are nested in plans at the regional and/or ecosystem reaches a tipping point, or threshold, at which rapid
national level and in policies at the regional/national or inter- change occurs (Scheffer et al. 2001). Collapse of a shery is
national level. It is the regional/national and international poli- one example. Such changes can deprive people of their liveli-
cies that steer change in the indirect drivers over longer periods hoods or spark violent conict over scarce resources. The North
of time. Local decisions can change a direct driver, such as land Atlantic cod shery represents the challenges of recovery once
use, that inuences the health of an ecosystem service such as a resource has collapsed (see Figure 2.3). Once a threshold
pollination or water ltration in the shorter term. has been crossed, restoring ecosystems to enable the supply of
This element of the framework can help a decision maker services can take decades or prove impossible.
think through at what spatial scales the decision might most ef-
fectively be made and what temporal scales should be considered.
Relevant spatial scales might coincide with political boundar- BUILD EFFECTIVE PROCESSES FOR
ies, such as districts or countries, or might better t with more ASSESSING ECOSYSTEM SERVICES AND
geographic boundaries, such as watersheds or forest areas that SELECTING POLICIES
include parts of several political entities. An analysis across spatial Given the likely diversity of participants and viewpoints in
and temporal scales is likely to identify issues lost in the usual development projects and policy making, it is important to
linear framework of project decisions, thereby leading to more build channels for effective participation. This section describes
robust conclusions.
Although it is challenging
to include multiple spatial and Figure 2.3 Fish Landings of North Atlantic Cod off Newfoundland
temporal scales in a decision-
making process, this approach
is crucial to obtaining a more 900 000
complete view of the conse-
quences of a decision on eco- 800 000
system services and, as a result,
on human well-being and de- 700 000
velopment goals. The approach
avoids the biases of a single- 600 000
scale analysis. For example,
a study found that top-down 500 000
global assessments of poten-
tial of technologies to reduce
400 000
greenhouse gas emissions were
not sensitive to local obstacles
300 000
and constraints and tended to
overestimate the likely reduc-
tion in emissions. In contrast, 200 000
bottom-up assessments at the
city or regional level tended to 100 000
underestimate the potential of
reductions because they were 0
less aware of directions on tech-
nological and policy change Decade
(Kates and Wilbanks 2003; Source: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

19 ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


two principles, credibility and legitimacy, to adhere to
Box 2.3 The Authority of Scientic Consensus
when collecting information on ecosystem services, building
scenarios, and making choices about policies. Adopting these Authoritativeness has its strongest expression in expert consensus,
principles can broaden the types of knowledge obtained, that is, in the general agreement among scientists or technical
help foster trust among participants and condence in the experts on a set of statements or ndings. Although consensus
among experts is rare, once established it carries the weight of
information used, thus increasing the chances of achieving truth. Consensus was the strategy adopted by the Intergovern-
development goals. mental Panel on Climate Change and the Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment.
Ensure credibility By engaging experts from various disciplines and reviewing virtu-
Credibility refers to the extent to which information and deci- ally all relevant scientic literature, these processes can reach an
sions resulting from a process are considered believable and authoritative consensus. The process of generating information
and the language used to convey a rigorous treatment of the
trustworthy. To ensure credibility of a scientic assessment, a issues is also important, particularly the treatment of uncertainty.
decision maker looks for experts recognized for the high quality Because uncertainty is the norm in complex systems like eco-
of their work or who are afliated with highly regarded institu- systems, the technical team should explicitly state the level of
tions (see Box 2.3). condence members have in the information produced as a way
of strengthening its credibility.
During the past three or four decades, the process of gather-
A sound conceptual framework, appropriate research methods,
ing, organizing, and presenting information for decision mak- and compliance with widely accepted procedures, especially peer
ers has evolved using approaches ranging from environmental review, are pre-requisites for scientic credibility. The tension
impact and technology assessments to scientic advisory between the role of experts and the practical needs of decision
committees and global development and scientic assessments. makers is visible when the discussion moves from hard facts to
policy analysis and selection. At these junctures decision makers
Increasingly, the cutting edge issues in assessment are how to and experts need to remember that the role of the technical team
include multiple time and spatial scales and multiple types of is to deliver information, not decisions or policy recommendations.
knowledge, for example, those of scientists and those of local In other words, the technical team must provide information that
farmers or shers (Reid et al. 2006). is policy relevant, not policy prescriptive, lest its credibility and its
legitimacy be eroded.
Addressing a range of scales and using different types of
knowledge are particularly important for the credibility of as-
sessments of ecosystem services because both ecosystem change Establish legitimacy
and responses vary by scale. Recognizing from the experience Legitimacy refers to the fairness of a process, and how values,
of participants that a more systematic approach to the intersec- concerns, and perspectives of diverse stakeholders are treated. If
tion of multiple scales and knowledge systems is needed, the participants view a process as legitimate, they are more likely to
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment organized a conference on invest in it and accept its ndings or conclusions.
Bridging Scales and Knowledge Systems. Processes involving diverse stakeholders need to be sensitive
The case studies and analysis presented at the conference to different cultures, languages, and time frames. In some cases,
draw out the obstacles to building bridges. For example, community organizations or indigenous groups may prefer to
efforts to bridging knowledge systems lack a common develop a framework for organizing assessment information
language and an agreed set of assumptions about how the based on their own beliefs and knowledge (see Box 2.4). In
world works and absence of a common means of verify- other cases potential participants may clearly understand the
ing the veracity of knowledge. Among the many barriers relevance and utility of a decision but still opt to stay away
to crossing scales are the lack of data and understanding of from the decision-making process. Or they may feel they do
interactions across scales. The analysis points to long-term not have the capacity to participate or prefer to be a specta-
joint problem solving in which local people and scientists tor. In terms of inclusivity, it is important to understand why
operate as equals as one approach to bridging knowledge users relate to a process as they dowhat is their capacity to
systems. Scenario-building is another participate, or what are their political motives for disengage-
tool (Reid et al. 2006). mentand then to adjust the engagement strategy accordingly.

KEY LEARNINGS
Building legitimacy and credibility into the process of
decision making on ecosystems and development is key.

F RAM IN G T HE L INK BE T WE E N DE VE L OP M EN T AN D E CO S YST E M S E R VI CE S 20


Box 2.4 Engaging Local Communities in the Assessment of Ecosystem Services

An assessment of ecosystem services in the Vilcanota region of Peru used a framework recreated by the community to reect Quechua cul-
ture. The cross shape of the framework represents the Chakana, the most familiar and revered shape to Quechua people, which frames the
world through intentional group decision making that emphasizes reciprocity. Using a framework the villagers developed, rather than translat-
ing the framework prepared by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, allowed them to carry out the assessment of their soil and water qual-
ity and how these services relate to food production using their own concepts and local knowledge. A key concept, for example, is the cyclical
process of change, a concept that they can use to make changes based on their assessment (MA 2005e:12).

Kaypacha
Pachamama
Indicators Hananpacha
Ecological functions
of indigenous Ukupacha
Diversity nurturing
knowledge
Spiritual attainment

Munay, Yachay, Pachakuti


Llankay
Changes within
Adaptation
Co-evolution
Learning systems
Ayni thresholds

Complexity of
Information and
cause and effect
knowledge transmission
of changes
systems

Ayllu
Traditional institutions
Governance systems
Customary laws
Social struggles

APPLY THE FRAMEWORK AND PRINCIPLES: electric facilities, which generate electricity for 1.7 million cus-
A MINI CASE STUDY tomers. Faced with the challenge of meeting several conicting
Because the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment framework water use objectives, including recreation, shing, and conserva-
is only a few years old, examples of its use are still rare. This tion as well as hydropower production, the province of British
section looks at a water use planning process in the Canadian Columbia formally initiated a water use planning program in
province of British Columbia that started in 1998 and encom- 1998 in an effort to reach broad agreement among diverse users
passed many of the concepts discussed in this chapter. It also of the provinces water resources. This participatory process in-
notes the results of a 2007 partnership by BC Hydro with the volved BC Hydro, several agencies, and members of the public
World Resources Institute, World Business Council for Sustain- and can be dissected in terms of the frameworks elements.
able Development, and Meridian Institute that explicitly used
an approach based on the framework in road testing a method
for linking ecosystem services with corporate decision making.
BC Hydro, a state-controlled company in Canada, depends
on provincial watersheds to provide water ows for its hydro-

21 ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


Human well-being The program took a participatory approach and included
The use of water for production and hydroelectricity contrib- users of the various ecosystem services in the watershed, includ-
utes to human well-being by providing heating, cooling, and ing the First Nations, environmental organizations, Fisher-
energy for residential and industrial use and by supporting jobs ies and Oceans Canada, British Columbia government, and
as well as other benets. The water use planning process sought communities surrounding the hydroelectric facilities. Including
to balance other competing uses of water that contribute to all these users helped identify the major impacts on ecosystems
well-being: domestic water supply, sh and wildlife, recreation, and the services they provide. The process was also successful in
and heritage. securing broad agreement on the ultimate recommendations of
the consultative committees.
Ecosystem services More recently, BC Hydros corporate ecosystem services
The participants helped identify the ecosystem services that BC work with the World Resources Institute highlighted the need
Hydros operations affect. These include recreation and tourism for BC Hydro to take into account changes in ecosystem
(including cultural heritage sites), ood control, sheries, and services occurring at broader temporal and spatial scales as a
freshwater supply. While the initial process focused on im- result of climate change. Overall, the framework was particu-
pacts, BC Hydros subsequent work with the World Resources larly useful in highlighting ecosystem service dependencies and
Institute identied dependencies of the companys operations on extending the analysis to other scales.
ecosystem services. These include freshwater, water regulation The framework and principles of credibility and legitimacy
(quantity and timing of water ows), and to a lesser extent ero- discussed in this chapter can be used to help organize an as-
sion regulation (soil retention). sessment of ecosystem services (chapter 3); to examine future
pathways, or scenarios (chapter 4); and to choose polices for
Direct and indirect drivers safeguarding ecosystem services that underlie
of ecosystem change development goals (chapter 5).
Drivers of ecosystem change identied by the ecosystem
services review included climate change (affecting water supply
and timing of ows); land use change (expanding agriculture
increases water demand); and demographic change (growing ACTION POINTS
population increases water demand). l Map the links between human well-being and the
ecosystem services needed to achieve the goal.

Spatial and temporal scales l Identify the scale at which actions need to be taken
to address drivers of ecosystem degradation.
British Columbia is experiencing several changes that could
l Use results of scale analysis to identify stakeholders.
have a profound effect on BC Hydros future operations. These
include climate change (glacier retreat and reduced snow pack l Establish credibility and legitimacy as core principles when
designing participatory processes for assessing ecosystem
and possible changes in precipitation patterns); industrial services, exploring future scenarios, and selecting policies.
activities such as timber harvesting and ecosystem disturbances
such as mountain pine beetle outbreaks that may increase water
ow to the catchment area; and increases in water demand due
to population growth and agricultural expansion in areas where
water supply is expected to decrease.
By examining company operations within a larger spatial
and temporal context, BC Hydro is better positioned to pursue
effective adaptive management strategies to maintain future
options and support emerging economic opportunities for
communities and First Nations. In addition, BC Hydro may
benet from agreements for the provision of mutually bene-
cial services such as ood control.

Effective participatory processes


Before 1998, BC Hydro found itself at odds with others who
relied on the waterways of British Columbia for shing, recre-
ation, spiritual and culture values, and as a source of freshwater.
In response to growing tensions among users, the province for-
mally initiated a water use planning program to dene suitable
operating parameters that would balance environmental, social,
and economic values.

FRAMING THE LINK BETWEEN DEVELOPMENT AND ECOSYSTEM SER VICES 22


Table 2.1 List of Ecosystem Services
Service Sub-category Denition Examples
Provisioning services - the goods or products obtained from ecosystems
Food Crops Cultivated plants or agricultural produce which are harvested by Grains
people for human or animal consumption Vegetables
Fruits

Livestock Animals raised for domestic or commercial consumption or use Chicken


Pigs
Cattle

Capture sheries Wild sh captured through trawling and other non-farming Cod
methods Shrimp
Tuna

Aquaculture Fish, shellsh, and/or plants that are bred and reared in ponds, Clams
enclosures, and other forms of fresh- or salt-water connement for Oysters
purposes of harvesting Salmon

Wild foods Edible plant and animal species gathered or captured in the wild Fruits and nuts
Fungi
Bushmeat

Fiber Timber and wood bers Products made from trees harvested from natural forest ecosystems, Industrial roundwood
plantations, or non-forested lands Wood pulp
Paper

Other bers (e.g., cotton, Non-wood and non-fuel based bers extracted from the natural Textiles (clothing, linen,
hemp, silk) environment for a variety of uses accessories)
Cordage (twine, rope)

Biomass fuel Biological material derived from living or recently living organisms Fuelwood
both plant and animal that serves as a source of energy Grain for ethanol production
Dung

Freshwater Inland bodies of water, groundwater, rainwater, and surface waters Freshwater for drinking,
for household, industrial, and agricultural uses cleaning, cooling, industrial
processes, electricity
generation, or mode of trans-
portation

Genetic resources Genes and genetic information used for animal breeding, plant Genes used to increase crop
improvement, and biotechnology resistance

Biochemicals, natural medicines, and Medicines, biocides, food additives, and other biological materials Echinacea, ginseng, garlic
pharmaceuticals derived from ecosystems for commercial or domestic use Paclitaxel as basis for cancer
drugs
Tree extracts used for pest
control

Regulating services - the benets obtained from an ecosystems control of natural processes
Air quality regulation Inuence ecosystems have on air quality by emitting chemicals to Lakes serve as a sink for
the atmosphere (i.e., serving as a source) or extracting chemicals industrial emissions of sulfur
from the atmosphere (i.e., serving as a sink) compounds
Vegetation res emit particu-
lates, ground-level ozone, and
volatile organic compounds

Climate regulation Global Inuence ecosystems have on the global climate by emitting Forests capture and store
greenhouse gases or aerosols to the atmosphere or by absorbing carbon dioxide
greenhouse gases or aerosols from the atmosphere Cattle and rice paddies emit
methane

Regional and local Inuence ecosystems have on local or regional temperature, Forests can impact regional
precipitation and other climatic factors rainfall levels

23 ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


Table 2.1 List of Ecosystem Services (continued)
Service Denition Denition Examples
Regulating services - the benets obtained from the regulation of ecosystem processes (continued)
Water regulation Inuence ecosystems have on the timing and magnitude of water runoff, ooding, and aquifer Permeable soil facilitates aqui-
recharge, particularly in terms of the water storage potential of the ecosystem or landscape fer recharge
River oodplains and wetlands
retain water, which can decrease
ooding during runoff peaks,
reducing need for engineered
ood control infrastructure

Erosion regulation Role vegetative cover plays in soil retention Vegetation such as grass and
trees prevents soil loss and
siltation of water ways due to
wind and rain.
Forests on slopes hold soil
in place thereby preventing
landslides

Water Role ecosystems play in the ltration and decomposition of organic wastes and pollutants in water; Wetlands remove harmful pol-
purication assimilation and detoxication of compounds through soil and subsoil processes lutants from water by trapping
and waste metals and organic materials
treatment Soil microbes degrade organic
waste rendering it less harmful

Disease regulation Inuence that ecosystems have on the incidence and abundance of human pathogens Some intact forests reduce
occurrence of standing water,
a breeding area for mosqui-
toes, which can reduce the
prevalence of malaria

Pest regulation Inuence ecosystems have on the prevalence of crop and livestock pests and diseases Predators from nearby forest,
such as bats, toads, snakes,
consume crop pests

Pollination Animal-assisted pollen transfer between plants, without which many plants cannot reproduce Bees from nearby forests
pollinate crops

Natural hazard Capacity for ecosystems to reduce the damage caused by natural disasters such as hurricanes and Mangrove forests and coral
regulation tsunamis and to maintain natural re frequency and intensity reefs protect coastlines from
storm surges
Biological decomposition
processes reduce potential fuel
for wildre

Cultural services - the nonmaterial benets people obtain from ecosystem services
Ethical values Spiritual, religious, aesthetic, intrinsic or other values people attach to ecosystems, landscapes, or Spiritual fulllment derived
species from sacred lands and rivers

Existence values The value that individuals place on knowing that a resource exists, even if they never use that Belief that all species are worth
resource. protecting regardless of their
utility to human beings biodi-
versity for biodiversitys sake

Recreation and Recreational pleasure people derive from natural or cultivated ecosystems Hiking, camping and bird
ecotourism watching
Going on safari

Supporting services - the underlying processes that are necessary for the production of all other ecosystem services
Nutrient cycling Process by which nutrients such as phosphorus, sulfur and nitrogen are extracted from their mineral, aquatic, or atmospheric
sources or recycle from their organic forms and ultimately return to the atmosphere, water, or soil

Soil formation Process by which organic material is decomposed to form soil

Primary production Formation of biological material through assimilation or accumulation of energy and nutrients by organisms

Photosynthesis Process by which carbon dioxide, water, and sunlight combine to form sugar and oxygen

Water cycling Flow of water through ecosystems in its solid, liquid, or gaseous forms

Source: Adapted from Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

FRA M IN G TH E LIN K BETWEEN D EV ELOPM EN T A N D EC OSYSTEM SER VICES 24


The
2 Decision C O N T I N U E S

Where the Secretary tries to explain


ecosystem services at a cabinet
meeting and a process is created
The last time she had been asked to speak to the cabinet was to describe the campaign One
child, one book, one tree, a program designed to link education with tree planting in the city. That
was how most of the other secretaries perceived the Secretary of Environment: birds and trees. She
had an especially hard time with the Secretary of Public Works. With the indirect support of NGOs,
she had recently managed to shift environmental impact assessments from his area to hers, which
put them at odds every time infrastructure was developed. An old-fashioned engineer, he thought
the environment was a fad, and just did not believe that people and ecosystems depend on each
other. It is hard for someone to understand something when his job depends on not understanding
it--she thought the saying applied very well to him. Public works were the single largest item in the
municipal budget, and the larger the works, the larger the opportunity for corruption.
This time the Secretary of Environment had a better chance to be heard. The ood control
infrastructure had failed miserably last month, and the Mayor was worried about the public reac-
tion to the oods
She unfolded a map of the region. We need to prepare for a cholera and diarrhea epidemic
in the poorer quarters, she began with a calm voice. The water purication plant will have to be upgraded soon.
We should forget about ecotourism and prepare to face a protest by shermen and NGOs over water quality.
She then moved to the big picture. Our region is no longer what it was 20 years ago. Population, the economy,
croplands, and water consumption have all more than doubled, and we are experiencing a serious transformation of
our ecosystems. Last months oods might very well be related to a combination of increasing precipitation and defor-
estation upstream, in the rural municipalities of Springeld and Segura. The rains were unusually hard, but if that 50
percent of the forest now gone had been there, the consequences would have been less severe. If deforestation con-
tinues and the forest is replaced with maize or sugar cane for a biofuel project, things will only get worse for us: more
forced migration, dirtier water, a less predictable water ow, depletion of sheries in the delta, less tourism, higher
incidence of diseases. This is a good moment to start integrating ecosystem services into our development planning.
It took her less than ten minutes, and she knew she had got the message across because of the silence, and be-
cause the rst one to speak was the Secretary of Public Works.
So you are suggesting we just forego the largest investment ever for the sake of trees... Do you have any idea
how much the biofuel project means to our economy?
Im suggesting we put people rst and make sure the largest investment is not also the largest mistake. Do you
know how much the biofuel project will cost our economy? Right now the basin provides us with relatively clean
water, good sh production, a very attractive tourist destination, and much more. All of this has a value that we are
not accounting for.
Tourism and shing do not add up to the benets of the factory.
How do you know? Also, remember that the NGOs will make sure the biofuel complex ends up being much
more expensive. Remember how they managed to cancel the sh processing factory project? Not to mention the new
environmental guidelines that the nancial community is developing.
If the complex is not built here it will be built a few kilometers to the east, said the Secretary of Planning, and
the pressure from demand for fuel crops on our region will be just the same. Well just export the crops without the
benet of industrial development.

25 E C OS Y S T E M SE R V I CE S : A G U I D E F O R D E C I SI O N MA K ERS
Without rational planning we will soon have to choose between biofuel and clean water, protection against
natural hazards, tourism, shing and health. This is not about the biofuel complex, but about managing ecosystem
services for the well-being of the city, said the Secretary of Environment.
The Mayor was intrigued but a little foggy. What do you mean by ecosystem services? he asked.
Ecosystem services are the benets that nature provides to society. We are amazingly blind to how important
well-functioning ecosystems are to our well-being and the impact we are having on these life support systems.
Look, the Secretary started drawing a diagram.
Interesting, but this is all theory. Ive never seen biodiversity on any spread sheet, the Mayor said.
I suggest we gather information about ecosystem services in our region and organize it around some key policy
questions before we make any further big development decisions, concluded the Secretary.
The Secretaries of Public Works and Planning were not convinced, but they could not nd an argument to oppose the
idea of conducting a study. But the Mayor liked the prospect of having a clearer picture of what was happening in his city.
Can you produce that information over the next eight months? Id like to have it before the election campaign
begins in the fall.

THE DECISION 26
The
2 Decision C O N T I N U E S

Since the ood, environmental NGOs had been in the news more than ever. Journalists had been seeking them out to
explain the phenomenon and predict the future and they had obliged, telling stories about changing climate, rising sea lev-
els, eroded soils, and vanishing forests. To top it off, the information about the biofuel complex had been ltered to them,
and they were up in arms against it. They had joined forces with local shermen, with whom they had built an uneasy
relation when the conict over the zoning of the coastal wetland and the struggle against the sh processing plant. NGOs
in Springeld, Segura, and even abroad, concerned about the forest and the wetlands, were joining the chorus of critics.
Jobs? Its all automated now. The renery will employ no more than 100 people, and the senior staff will come
from overseas, a leading NGO staffer said on the evening news. And she added: Environmentally friendly? Biofuel
is a disgrace. It will only foster more monoculture, further displacing small farmers and devastating the forest. Which
means more oods like last months will occur. Our wetlands will be degraded. And food prices will go up as the land
is used to produce fuel for export instead of foodstuff. In the end we will be left as poor and poisoned as ever. We
will bring this case before the international community. And we are not ruling out direct action.
The Mayor was used to environmental conicts, mostly not in my backyard situations. But this seemed differ-
ent. It wasnt about the location of a factory, but about the factory itself. Somehow the biofuel project and the oods
had all got mixed up. He could not understand why environmentalists would oppose biofuel. He had been assured
this was a green industry. But what could he do? The national biofuel development goal was forcing on his city
new processes, few of which he controlled. The Secretary of Planning was right: here or there, in the end the complex
would be built and the demand for biofuel crops increase. But what seemed a simple decision was now looking too
complicated. Perhaps the Secretary of Environment was right and the environment had become a strategic issue?
On the other hand he could not help suspecting that she was the one who leaked the information about the biofuel
complex. That environmental report better be very good, he thought as he dialed her number.

Did you see the evening news? How is that report coming?, asked the Mayor.
We have a design ready, the Secretary reported. Weve been holding informal meetings with stakeholders....
Hold it, he cut her short. What do you mean?
The information we are gathering goes beyond the potential impact of the biofuel reneries. We are going to
take a picture of our region to understand the various factors at play. Everybody knows about the biofuel plan, and
everybody is worried about the oods and drinking water. Whatever decision you make, you need to show that its
part of a plan based not only on good, technical information, but also on legitimate information. So we will form a
high level Steering Committee to be on top of the technical work that will involve us, the private sector, NGOs, the
shing communities, the Church, and the Research Institute. We will also invite national authorities as observers.
There is no way the NGOs would accept my invitation. Besides, they will only use the opportunity to oppose us.
Remember that the issue of the reneries will be put in the broader context of the regional environment, and
this will be strictly an information-gathering exercise. No decisions will be made. And the private sector will be there,
too. Besides, you wont be the one to invite the NGOs. The Research Institute will. Well ask the Dean to co-chair the
Committee with you. The NGOs trust him just as business trusts you. The Bishop has agreed to participate, too, which
helps with shermen. The Committee will be such that no one will be able to question its legitimacy.
The Mayor was uneasy. Such exposure was risky, especially if he would not be controlling the outcome of the
process. But it had a big potential payoff, too, especially if the presence of national authorities projected this to the
whole country. He could already picture the headlines: An example for the nation: Mayor, Bishop, Dean together for
Rio Grande.
OK. What else? he asked.
We are now after the best scientist in town to have him lead the technical team. We want the report to be very
credible and prevent technical criticism. The Dean is helping recruit him, but the Professor is a bit reluctant. Says that
this is a lot of work and hed have to neglect a large research project on the biology of clams he is conducting for the
University of Mount Pleasant in Canada...

27 E C OS Y S T E M SE R V I CE S : A G U I D E F O R D E C I SI O N MA K ERS
Clams? interrupted the Mayor. When are these people going to produce something thats actually useful?
You have to understand that the clam project is the main source of funding for his team, and we have to admit
that no government department ever contributes to their work. I told him that we will come up with the money for
this, but we want to be cautious about our funding sources. We cannot have the World Bank fund this with all the
rumors that they will nance the biofuel complex.
In the end, the Professor did come around. He saw this as an opportunity to experiment with one of those fancy
integrated assessments he had read about in academic journals, as well as to raise the prole of the Institute and
help fund his other research activities. But he made it clear to the Dean that he would quit if he felt politics started to
creep into the technical work. The Dean reassured him: The Steering Committee is meant to dene what informa-
tion is needed for decision making, so you will have to keep a dialogue with them to make sure your work is relevant
and is actually put to use. But Ill be co-chairing it and will make sure that no political agendas are forced onto your
team. Well keep the policy and technical processes separate but well communicated.

Thank you for coming, began the Mayor.


There he was, co-chairing with the Dean the rst meeting of the Steering Committee. Attendance was perfect:
the Bishop, the leader of the shing cooperative, the head of the chamber of industry, the vice president of the main
timber company, the agricultural association spokesperson, two NGOs, and a representative of the national Minis-
try of Natural Resources. The Professor and his team were there, too. And the press. The national government had
refused to involve the Ministry of Planning as the Mayor had hoped. But the gathering was locally very strong.
The meeting was never going to be an easy one, but the Secretary of Environment had done a very good job talk-
ing with each sector before this rst meeting. Everyone knew exactly what they were there for: to dene the goal and
steps of an ecosystem assessment of Rio Grande.
The steps were easy enough to agree on: the Committee would meet once every month and consider reports by
the technical team; the reports would be considered nal once the Committee had expressed its satisfaction with
them.
Agreeing on the goal, the set of questions that the technical team would be asked to answer, proved
much harder. Everyone wanted a formulation that would support their particular interests, and
the Professor kept raising concerns about the viability of the requests. Finally, with some
skillful chairing of the meeting, they agreed on three basic questions for the
scientists:
l What are the key services that ecosystems provide to the population
of Rio Grande, who benets most from them, and how valuable
are they?
l What is the current condition of these ecosystem services and
what are the main processes affecting them? Will agricultural
expansion put these services at risk?
l If the region keeps growing as expected, what would happen
to these ecosystem services in the next 30 years?

This report will be a blueprint for the sustainable develop-


ment of this city, said an enthusiastic NGO towards the end,
providing the Dean with an opportunity he was waiting for.
Im afraid thats the one thing the report will not be.
We will just provide the information, to the extent it exists.
It will then be up to each of you to decide what to do with
it, the Dean said.

THE DECISION 28
C H A P T E R

3
Step one: Identify the ecosystem services in play ........................ 30
Lead Authors
Step two: Screen the ecosystem services for relevance ................ 32
Ciara Raudsepp-Hearne
Janet Ranganathan
Step three: Assess the condition and trends
of the relevant ecosystem services ................................................. 33 Contributing Authors
Neville Ash
Step four: Assess the need for an Elena Bennett
economic valuation of services.......................................................36 Lauretta Burke
Emily Cooper
Step ve: Identify ecosystem service Craig Hanson
risks and opportunities ...................................................................38 Charles Iceland

PHOTOS BY GETTY IMAGES


Assessing Risks and Opportunities
Related to Ecosystem Services 1

I
nformation on ecosystem services can strengthen a vari- STEP ONE: IDENTIFY THE
ety of decision-making processes, from creating a public ECOSYSTEM SERVICES IN PLAY
health policy; to preparing a local, regional, or national The rst step is to identify all the ecosystem services that a
economic plan; or siting a road. The process presented decision depends on and affects. It involves systematically con-
in this chapter can help a decision maker focus on those sidering for each ecosystem service whether or not the decision
services considered most likely to be sources of risk or opportu-depends on or has an impact on the ecosystem service. Although
nity to a specic decision (the term decision is used through- the linkages may at rst seem obvious, a systematic dependency/
out this chapter as shorthand for a policy, plan, or project). impact analysis increases the likelihood of uncovering unforeseen
Although the emphasis here is on a single decision, in reality impacts (positive or negative) or dependencies related to ecosys-
decision makers, like the mayor of Rio Grande, are juggling a tem services. Identifying these up-front will enable decision mak-
variety of decisions that interact with ecosystems. ers to proactively manage any associated risks and opportunities.
This chapter is organized around ve steps (see Figure 3.1). A decision depends on an ecosystem service if the service serves
The steps entail collecting information on the various ele- as an input or if it enables, enhances, or inuences the conditions
ments of the ecosystem services framework outlined earlier in necessary for a successful outcome in relation to the decision. For
Figure 2.1. Although presented sequentially, in practice it will example, housing and ofce development often depend on tim-
be necessary to move back and forth among the steps as the ber inputs; agribusiness depends on crops, pollination services,
information collection evolves. The resulting analysis will help and fresh water; and tourism depends on recreational and other
identify and anticipate the ecosystem servicerelated risks and cultural services as well as ood protection and fresh water.
opportunities associated with a decision. A decision affects an ecosystem service if actions associated
with the decision alter the quantity or
Figure 3.1 Overview of Steps in Assessing Risks and Opportunities Related quality of a service. For example, intensive
to Ecosystem Services agriculture can deplete the supply of fresh
water while enhancing the supply of crops
or livestock; a mining operation may affect
STEP ONE the quality of a locations cultural services
Identify the ecosystem by degrading the landscape or disturbing
services in play
an ecosystem valued by indigenous people,
hikers or campers; and the loss of wetlands
may affect the timing and quantity of
water runoff and aquifer recharge.
STEP TWO To identify ecosystem service depen-
Screen the ecosystem dencies and impacts, start with the list of
services for relevance
ecosystem services in Table 2.1 (chapter
2). Use the list of common services by
ecosystem type to help inform whether
an ecosystem service might exist in a
STEP THREE STEP FOUR particular location (see Table 3.1). (The
Assess the condition and Assess the need
drivers will be discussed later in relation to
trends of the relevant for an economic
ecosystem services valuation of services
identifying ecosystem service impacts.) In
a systematic fashion, consider whether or
not the decision depends on or affects each
relevant service in Table 2.1.
Be sure to include the indirect affects of
STEP FIVE
Identify ecosystem
development. Roads or electric cable poles
service risks and
opportunities 1
This chapter draws on WRIs experience road testing a
method for assessing a companys dependence and impact on
ecosystem services.

A SSESSIN G TH E C U RREN T STATU S OF EC OSY STEM SER V ICES 30


Table 3.1 Common Ecosystem Services and Drivers by Ecosystem Type
Ecosystem Ecosystem services Drivers of ecosystem change
Marine Fish and other seafood (commercial and subsistence sh- Overshing, destructive shing practices, nutrient runoff and deposition,
eries), ecotourism, recreation, medicinal products, climate climate change, pollution (sewage discharge, oil spills, mining)
regulation, transportation, freshwater cycling

Coastal Tourism, recreation, cultural value, sheries (commercial Nutrient runoff and deposition creating dead zones, industrial and urban
and subsistence), aquaculture, transportation, nutri- pollution, dredging of waterways, sediment transport from rivers, climate
ent cycling, storm/ood protection, climate regulation, change, invasive species, conversion of estuaries and wetlands, destruction
disease regulation, waste processing, erosion control, of estuarine sh nurseries, destruction of mangroves and coral reefs, over-
hydropower, freshwater storage exploitation of sheries, mangroves (for fuel wood), sand for construction,
seaweed for consumption

Inland Water Crops, sheries, freshwater, storage of greenhouse gases, Nutrient runoff, conversion of wetlands to agriculture, large-scale irrigation and
groundwater recharge and discharge, water for agricul- river diversions, expansion of agriculture (increased fertilizer and pesticide use),
ture and industry, detoxication of water, ood control, overharvesting of wild resources such as sh, roads and ood control infra-
recreation, tourism, cultural value, sediment retention, structure, dams, river canalization and dredging for navigation, forest clearing,
hydropower, nutrient cycling urban and industrial pollution, invasive species

Forest and Pollination, medicines, food, erosion control, water regu- Fires, climate change
Woodlands lation, timber, biofuel, food, climate regulation, disease Tropics: agricultural expansion, wood extraction (commercial or subsistence),
regulation, tourism, recreation, cultural value transportation infrastructure, human population dynamics
Temperate: reforestation due to increasing value of amenity services and
protection services, air pollution, pest outbreaks

Drylands Soil conservation of moisture, nutrient cycling, food, ber, Climate change, diversion of water for agriculture, salt buildup, desertica-
biochemicals, biofuel, pollination, freshwater, water regu- tion, reduction in vegetation cover, overgrazing, expansion of agriculture,
lation, climate regulation, cultural value, tourism population growth and migration

Island Fisheries, freshwater, tourism, recreation, timber, fuel, Demographic change, energy demands, invasive species, pollution, land
cultural value, ood/storm protection conversion and degradation, globalization and international trade, natural
hazards, climate change

Mountain Freshwater, food, medicinal plants, natural hazard regula- Climate change, natural hazards and disasters, grazing, mining, erosion,
tion, climate regulation, soil fertility, water regulation, construction of infrastructure for tourism and recreation, degradation of
recreation, tourism, cultural value, fuel, rangeland for traditional cultures, dynamics between highland and lowland populations
animals

Polar Climate regulation, freshwater, sheries, game animals, Climate change, development of extractive industries, contaminants from
fuel, ber, cultural value, tourism, recreation lower latitudes that accumulate in polar regions, over shing, invasive spe-
cies, land conversion

Cultivated Food, ber, fuel, pollination, nutrient cycling, soil forma- Increasing demand for products, international markets and trade, policy,
tion, pest regulation, freshwater legal and socio-cultural context of cultivation, prices, technology and man-
agement approaches, invasive species, climate change

Urban Ecosystem services generally consumed rather than Overconsumption, demographic change, waste generation, water pollution,
produced. Services supplied by green spaces and parks air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation in urban areas
include: air quality, microclimate regulation, noise reduc-
tion, water regulation (surface water drainage), pollina-
tion, genetic libraries, pest regulation, waste processing
and recycling, cultural value, recreation, tourism (urban
gardens and parks)

Source: Adapted from MA 2005b.

can increase access by third parties to previously inaccessible for residential development, for example, may cause erosion and
areas. The migration of people into previously uninhabited ooding 100 kilometers downstream. Applying large amounts
areas can affect ecosystem services such as freshwater, wild of fertilizers on agricultural elds may result in build-up of
foods and timber. nitrogen or phosphorus in soils, causing explosions of toxic mi-
Because ecosystem service impacts are often separated in croorganisms in nearby water bodies 10 years later. These trade-
time and space from the decision or actions that give rise to offs over time and across space may be missed if the geographic
them, identifying the impacts and dependencies usually requires focus is too narrow or the time horizon too short.
expanding the boundaries of the analysis to a regional or land- Two resources to consult when considering ecosystem
scape level and adopting broad time frames. Clearing a forest service dependencies include Table 1.1 in chapter 1, which
describes examples of how development goals depend upon
ecosystem services, and Figure 2.2 in chapter 2, which shows

31 ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


Box 3.1 Supplying New York City with Clean Drinking Water: Watershed Ecosystem Services versus Filtration Plant

Approximately 9 million people in New York City and nearby areas enjoy access to clean and inexpensive drinking water from the surround-
ing watershed, 90% of which is drawn from sources west of the Hudson River in the Catskill Mountains and the headwaters of the Delaware
River (NRC 2000). Water from this Catskill/Delaware system lters through nearly 1,600 square miles of watershed land, providing the city
with an average 1.3 billion gallons of drinking water per day (Hazen and Sawyer 1997).
In the early 1990s, New York City ofcials had to take measures to ensure adequate drinking water for its residents in the face of a decline in
water quality. They compared the cost-effectiveness of a watershed protection plan to safeguard the ecosystems capacity to provide water
ltration services versus building a ltration plant.
New York City estimated construction costs for Catskill/Delaware ltration facilities to be as much as $6 billion, with annual operating ex-
penses of more than $300 million (NYC DEP 1993a; Paden and Shen 1995). On the other hand, protecting the watershed meant regulating
land use over a sizeable territory. New York City owned only about 6 percent of the Catskill/Delaware watershed; another 20 percent was
part of the New York State Catskill Forest Preserve (NRC 2000). The other three quarters of the watershed were privately owned and thus may
have been the source of contaminants from agriculture and other land use activities (NRC 2000).
Under the most extreme scenario, city ofcials proposed to protect all developable land in the watershed by direct acquisition or conservation
easements (NYC DEP 1993b:246), requiring an estimated $2.7 billion to purchase fee titles or easements on about 240,000 acres (NYC DEP
1993a; Pfeffer and Wagenet 1999). New York City eventually negotiated a combination of land acquisition and management agreements
with other landholders to protect the watershed at a total cost that was far less than the estimated cost of building a ltration facility (NRC
2000). Although a ltration plant may be needed in the future, the investment in the watershed proved cost-effective at the time.

links between ecosystem services and human well-being and included in the detailed assessment in step three.
the relative strength of their relationship. A substitute for an ecosystem service could include a
When identifying ecosystem service impacts, it can help to manufactured product or physical structure that provides a
consider whether the actions associated with the decision will similar service. For example, a new water ltration plant could
contribute to any of the direct or indirect drivers of ecosystem provide the water purication services of a wetland (although it
change (see Figure 2.1 in chapter 2). Drivers are the natural would not provide the wildlife habitat or other services of the
or human factors that cause ecosystem change (see Table 3.1). wetland). Built sea walls could provide the natural hazard regu-
They can interact and operate at multiple scales and time lation (coastal protection) services of mangroves or coral reefs.
frames. If the decision affects any of these drivers it will likely Provisioning services such as crops, sh, and timber are more
affect the ecosystem and its supply of services. For example, likely to be substitutable (since they are portable and may be
a decision can change human demand for certain servicesa imported from other locations) than are regulating and cultural
new international market for shellsh may create high demand services, which tend to be location specic.
for what was an underexploited ecosystem service in a certain If a substitute exists, it is important to also consider whether
locale. Any drivers identied here should be included in the it is cost-effective relative to the ecosystem service it replaces.
more detailed assessment in step three below to determine their Maintaining an ecosystems capacity to provide a particular
current condition and trend. service, such as retaining hedgerows in farmlands to regulate
crop pests, may provide additional services and be more cost-
effective than replacing it with a manufactured substitute, such
STEP TWO: SCREEN THE ECOSYSTEM as chemical pesticides.
SERVICES FOR RELEVANCE New York City ofcials concluded it was more cost-effective
The second step entails screening the ecosystem services to maintain natural ecosystembased water purication services
identied in step one to determine which are most relevant than to construct and operate a ltration plant (see Box 3.1).
to the decision in order to set priorities for further assess- In the case of mining, companies may compensate affected
ment. Given limited resources, a decision maker may not be communities for lost ecosystem services by providing cash
able to assess in detail all the ecosystem services that a deci- handouts that enable them to obtain the lost services or pur-
sion depends on and impacts. This step will also inform what chase other goods and services not previously available. These
geographic (spatial) and time scales to include in the decision- can be improved forms of housing, piped water, high-protein
making process, as well as identify other users of the services foods, or medicines. However, the loss of ecosystem services
that may affect or be affected by the decision. may outlast the cash benet, creating inequity over time. In ad-
dition, cash benets are less likely to adequately replace cultural
Ecosystem service dependencies benets, for example, of a sacred site. Economic valuation can
The dependence of a decision on an ecosystem service is likely be used to develop a more complete picture of the costs and
to be relevant if no cost-effective substitute exists for the service. benets of altering ecosystem services (see section on economic
Using the list of ecosystem service dependencies identied valuation).
in step one, determine for each whether or not a cost-effec-
tive substitute exists. If the answer is no the service should be

A SSES SIN G T HE C URREN T STATU S OF EC OSYSTE M S ER VICES 32


Ecosystem service impacts Is the decisions impact a large share of the total local or
A key factor in determining whether an impact on an ecosys- regional impact? A decision that results in a large impact
tem service is relevant is whether or not the impact limits or (positive or negative) on an ecosystem service relative to
enhances the ability of others to use or benet from that ser- other sources of impact is more likely to affect the ability
vice. Other users or beneciaries may be located at spatial scales of others to benet from a service. Examples include a
ranging from local (e.g. a coastal community that benets from decision that consumes or replenishes 30 percent of the
the natural hazard protection service from a wetland) to global fresh water in a watershed, one that consumes or supplies
(e.g., people who derive ethical or existence value from know- 35 percent of a nations wood ber or one that is solely
ing that a rare species is protected). In addition, they may be responsible for clearing or restoring native grasslands val-
present or future users of the service. Governments and civil so- ued for biodiversity and associated cultural services. There
ciety, for example, often act in the interests of current or future are no hard and fast rules for dening what constitutes a
generations. Questions to consider when assessing a decisions large share. Decision makers will need to use their own
impact on others include: or expert judgment regarding the size of impact relative to
the appropriate spatial scale for the ecosystem service.
Box 3.2 Issues to Think about When Gathering and Is the ecosystem service in short supply relative to demand?
Assessing Ecosystem Services Data To illustrate, a new irrigation project in a watershed with
seasonal water shortages may be relevant if it precludes
Keeping the assessment affordable others from using water. Conversely, an irrigation projects
If a full-blown multi-scale participatory assessment cant be funded, a
limited analysis of the selected ecosystem services can still be valuable. impact on water may not be relevant if water availability
The analysis can be based on general knowledge and desktop research vastly exceeds demand.
of previous studies related to the ecosystem services. International inter- Could the decisions impact push the ecosystem service across
est in ecosystem service assessment is growing. Encouraging decision a biological threshold that leads to scarcity of the service? For
makers to use information on ecosystem services will build demand for
expertise in this eld, encourage more funding for assessments, and an ecosystem service that is at or near a tipping point, after
increase the availability of tools and information on ecosystem services. which rapid change occurs, a decisions marginal impact
Deciding on boundaries on that service may be relevant. Examples include allow-
The scale at which information is collected needs to be appropriate to ing additional shing in a region with highly depleted sh
the decision-making needs and the scale at which ecosystem services stocks that are near collapse or marginal increases in phos-
and drivers interact. A common boundary for collecting ecological
phorous or nitrogen loading into rivers that could lead to
information is the regional or watershed scale, as many ecosystem
services are bound through hydrological processes within a watershed. the creation of dead zones in lakes or coastal areas due to
Decision makers may choose to conduct assessments at social or politi- oxygen falling below a threshold.
cal scales, setting boundaries at the community, municipal, state/prov- It is important to keep in mind that different beneciaries
ince, or national levels, as this is most relevant to their decision-making
of ecosystem services may have very different responses to these
authority. If the political boundaries do not coincide with ecological
boundaries, partnerships will need to be established to ensure policy questions. Indigenous people, for example, often place great
coherence in regard to the management and use of ecosystem services. importance on cultural services such as sacred groves and animal
Filling information gaps or plant species used in rituals. In addition, particular attention
Data on ecosystem services are usually obtained from a variety of should be paid to important regulating and supporting ecosys-
existing sources, such as global and national data bases and free tem services, such as nutrient cycling and pollination, where im-
satellite imagery. However, in some cases it may be necessary to in-
vest in new data collection where no information is available. Setting
pacts often go unnoticed but can build up and cause unexpected
up monitoring networks, collecting information from practitioners problems for different beneciaries. In cases of uncertainty, it
and citizens, and involving students or interns to gather information may make sense to err on the side of conservatism and include
are ways to surmount the problem of scarce data. Civic groups can the service in the detailed assessment done in step three.
encourage ecosystem monitoring by distributing cell phones and
offering free connection service in return for regular reports on envi-
ronmental conditions. In a local assessment in India, schoolchildren
interviewed knowledgeable residents in their village and document- STEP THREE: ASSESS THE
ed information on the condition and trends of ecosystem services CONDITION AND TRENDS OF THE
related to local livelihoods and well-being (MA 2005e: 264).
RELEVANT ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
Taking into account uncertainties The third step involves conducting a more detailed analysis
An ecosystem services assessment should adopt a consistent approach
for assessing, characterizing, and reporting uncertainties about nd- of the condition of the ecosystem services selected in step two
ings. Since stakeholders have different levels of risk aversion or accep- and their trends. The resulting information will be used in
tance, how an assessment was conducted should be transparent and a the nal step to identify the ecosystem servicebased risks and
level of condence should be attached to each nding. An uncertainty opportunities associated with the decision. Answering three
analysis might identify the most important factors and uncertainties
that could affect a conclusion, document ranges and distributions of questions can help focus the assessment:
data related to a nding, and evaluate the state of scientic informa- What are the condition and trends of the selected ecosystem
tion on which a conclusion or estimate is based (MA 2005f). services?

33 ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


Table 3.2 Methods to Assess Ecosystem Services
Method Description Sample uses Example
Remote Sensing Data obtained from satellite Assessment of large areas, land cover/land The India sub-global assessment team tracked
sensors or aerial photographs use, biodiversity deforestation using satellite imagery.
(LANDSAT, MODIS)
Geographic Software that spatially maps and Analysis of temporal changes in ecosystems; The Southern Africa sub-global assessment used
Information analyzes digitized data (ArcGIS, overlaying social and economic information GIS to analyze where human demand for water
Systems ArcView, IDRISI) with ecosystem information; correlating trends existed and where that service is supplied.
in ecosystem services with land use change
Inventories Lists Tally ecosystem services and natural An assessment in the Mekong wetlands of Vietnam
resources developed an inventory of all the ecosystem
services that are important in the region (to people,
the economy. and ecosystem functioning).
Ecological Models Simplied mathematical expres- Filling gaps in existing data; quantifying the The Western China sub-global assessment used the
sions that represent the complex effects of management decisions on the Agroecological Zoning model to estimate the car-
interactions between physical, condition of ecosystem services; projecting rying capacity of land (i.e., the maximum number
biological, and socioeconomic long-term effects of changes in ecosystem of individuals that can be supported by ecosystem
elements of ecosystems (SWAT, condition; assessing the effects of individual services in a unit area assuming sustainable devel-
IMAGE, IMPACT, WaterGAP, drivers and scenarios on ecosystem condition opment). The Southern Africa sub-global assess-
EcoPath, Ecosim) and the supply of ecosystem services; explor- ment used the PODIUM model to assess trade-offs
ing the links between elements in a system between food and water provisioning services.
Participatory Information supplied by Collection of knowledge not available in Assessments in Norway and Portugal made use of
Approaches and stakeholder groups, scientic scientic literature; lls gaps in the literature; participatory ranking and scoring for the condition
Expert Opinion experts, workshops, traditional adds new perspectives, knowledge, and and trends of ecosystem services and biodiversity.
knowledge values to assessment

Source: Adapted from MA 2005c.

What are the major drivers affecting the ecosystem services?


Table 3.3 Indicators Used to Assess the Quantity and Quality of Freshwater
What thresholds or irreversible changes have been observed in
the ecosystem services? Data type Indicators and methods to obtain data
Household use Water withdrawals from groundwater wells and
These questions can be modied or expanded depending on surface water, rates of rainwater harvesting
the nature of the decision and feedback from participants and Industrial use Water withdrawals from groundwater and
stakeholders. Several other issues should also be considered when surface water
gathering and assessing data on ecosystem services (see Box 3.2). Agricultural use Area under irrigation, type of crop, yields per
crop, water withdrawals from groundwater
and surface water, quantity of water used by
What are the condition and trends of livestock, crop evaporative demands
the relevant ecosystem services? Groundwater discharge/re- Scientic studies, models
Assessing the condition and trends of the ecosystem services charge (renewable and fossil)
in the location affected by the decision will reveal how current Surface water ows Water balance models, observations from gauging
trends affect their supply. It will reveal any associated risks and stations, remote sensing, long-term mean runoff
opportunities for the decision. The information can also provide a Total supply of treated water Water withdrawals from municipalities, number
baseline for comparing future changes to the ecosystem services. of households, volume of water processed in
treatment plants
No matter what the status of environmental data in a region,
some type of ecosystem service assessment is usually possible. A Accessibility Proximity to humans, variation of water ows
over time, maximum to minimum runoff ratios,
regional assessment for Northern Wisconsin (USA) focused on amount of water impounded by dams, desalinized
tourism, recreation, sh, and freshwater and was based largely water, dependent population per unit of delivered
on existing data assembled by researchers at the University of ow, water crowding index (population served per
million cubic meters per year of accessible runoff)
Wisconsin (Peterson et al. 2003). It also incorporated local
Lost water ows Net evaporation (from irrigation cooling towers,
knowledge into a set of scenarios developed by the researchers reservoirs)
and local citizens about the future of the region. The Millen-
Water-related problems Salt buildup in soil, aquifer depletion, rising de-
nium Ecosystem Assessment used a variety of methods to assess velopment costs, competition for water (demand
the condition and trends of ecosystem services for its sub-global v. supply of freshwater), salt water intrusion into
assessments (see Table 3.2). aquifers, groundwater and surface water pollution

Indicators are frequently used to measure ecosystem services Environmental ows Water requirements for ecosystem types as a
percentage of mean ow
(see Table 3.3), as many services are not directly measurable.
Sediment loads in rivers, for example, can be used as indicators of Water quality Nitrogen and, phosphorus loads, pathogens,
heavy metal and persistent organic pollution.
erosion control. The number and types of sh species in an area
Source: MA 2005b.
A diversity of indicators may be available for any given service,
only some of which may be relevant to decision making.

A SSESSIN G TH E C U RREN T STATU S OF EC OSY STEM SER V ICES 34


Table 3.4 Rio Grande: Ecosystem Service Dependencies, Trends, and Impact of Drivers

How much does Rio


Recent trend Strength of
Ecosystem Service Grande depend on
in service impact of driver
the service?

High - supplied by
Food - crops farms in watershed and High - land use change (forest conversion to agriculture)
imports; agriculture High - external inputs (fertilizers, pesticides)
important to economy

Medium - supports High - harvest and resource consumption from


Food - capture local fishing population
and provides fresh fish to international trawlers
fisheries High - external inputs (fertilizers, pesticides)
community

Fiber energy Low - will change if Low - technology adaptation and use
(biofuel) biofuel plant built

High - demand from agriculture


Fresh water and growing city (quantity increasing High - land use change (wetland conversion to agriculture)
quantity because of rainfall but timing issue High - external inputs (fertilizers, pesticides)
and quality degraded)

High - Rio Grande High - land use change


Water regulation vulnerable to floods;
(forest and wetland conversion to agriculture)
precipitation increasing

Water High Rio Grandes water


purification & treatment plant has limited High - land use change (wetland conversion to agriculture)
capacity to address increases in
waste treatment
sediments and pollution

High Agriculture dependent


Climate on stable climate and Medium - land use change (forest conversion to agriculture)
regulation expanding coastal community Low - climate change
vulnerable to storms

Soil erosion High waterway High - land use change (forest conversion to agriculture)
regulation vulnerable to siltation

High - monocultures High - land use change (forest conversion to agriculture)


Pest regulation increased vulnerability
to pests Low climate change

Medium - most crops


Pollination requiring pollination, but High - land use change (forest conversion to agriculture)
pollinators can be introduced

Natural Hazard High increase in High - land use change (wetland conversion to houses
regulation coastal community
and commercial property)
population; climate change

Recreation & Medium tourism and


ecotourism recreation increasing in High - land use change (forest conversion to agriculture)
coastal area and forests

Dependence Low, Medium, High denotes the relevance of service to Rio Grande.
Key: Recent trend arrow denotes whether service has increased , stayed the same or decreased in the recent past.
Drivers Low, Medium, High denotes drivers impact in the recent past.

35 ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


can be used as an indicator of the health of sheries (Karr 1981). shery (see Figure 2.3). In the case of sheries, constant moni-
Consulting experts and stakeholders can help determine which in- toring of sh stocks and adjustment of catches is more likely to
dicators are relevant, meaningful, understandable, and measurable. promote a resilient ecosystem than implementing a xed allow-
able catch per year (Gunderson and Holling 2002).
What are the major drivers already affecting While irreversible changes are often hard to predict, much
the ecosystem services? can be learned from case studies where unpredictable change
Assessing the current impact and trend of direct and indirect has occurred. Resilient societies and ecosystems are those that
drivers on the ecosystem services builds on the preliminary have the ability to accept and adapt to change while maintain-
assessment of the decisions contribution to drivers in step one, ing their basic structure, identity, and function. Developing the
expanding it to other drivers that may be affecting the services. capability to predict ecosystem disruptions can help build resil-
The list of drivers in chapter 2 (page 18) can again help ience, allowing for timely and potentially preventative action.
identify which, if any, drivers are affecting the supply of priority
services. Each driver identied as relevant to the services should STEP FOUR: ASSESS THE NEED FOR AN
be evaluated in terms of its current trend (increasing, decreasing, ECONOMIC VALUATION OF SERVICES
or constant) and its effect on the ecosystem service. Informa- Economic valuation is the attempt to assign quantitative
tion on drivers may be available from strategic environmental economic values to ecosystem services, including services that
assessments, environmental impact assessments, and other local are at least partially captured by the market (such as provision-
or regional assessments conducted in the focus area. Once infor- ing and some cultural services) and those that are not currently
mation on the current drivers has been collected, the potential valued in the marketplace at all (for instance, regulating services
effects of the decision on these drivers can be evaluated.
In the case of Rio Grande, indirect drivers relating to the Figure 3.2 Value of services provided by converted and
sustainably managed ecosystems
production of maize for biomass fuel might include technology
(local rening technology determining the type of biomass that
can be processed); subsidies (national level subsidies for bio-
mass fuel crops); and fuel standards (state level fuel standards
that mandate a biofuel/fossil fuel ratio for gasoline). The pro-
posed biofuel renery will increase two existing direct drivers:
land use change (further conversion of forests and wetlands to
cropland for biofuel) and pollutant discharges (increased runoff
of pesticides and fertilizers as a result of increased crop produc-
tion). These changes could exacerbate the existing decline in
freshwater quality and quantity (see Table 3.4), reducing sher-
ies and opportunities for ecotourism and recreation.

What thresholds or irreversible changes have


been observed in ecosystem services?
Ecosystem services do not always decline or improve in a linear
and predictable manner. They may naturally go through cycles
of collapse and renewal. Therefore, it is not as important to
maintain a xed relationship between people and ecosystems
as it is for social and ecological systems to be able to adapt to
and benet from change. Incorporating information about
ecosystem service change allows decision makers to distinguish
between strategies that are likely to enhance resilience and
those that may undermine it.
Sometimes sudden and irreversible collapses can occur when
a threshold is crossed, as when sh stocks decrease below a
certain level and cannot recover. The Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment identied several examples of irreversible ecosystem
change, including those associated with the intensication of
agriculture and over exploitation of capture sheries. After
hundreds of years of exploitation of the North Atlantic cod
shery, increased shing pressure and an inability to accurately
monitor sh stocks led to the sudden collapse of cod stocks in Source: MA 2005a
the late 1980s, which have yet to recover, and closure of the

A SSES SIN G T HE C URREN T STATU S OF EC OSYSTE M S ER VICES 36


such as coastal protection and erosion control). The result- different types of use. Some of these have found that the
ing information can draw attention to the value of ecosystem value of services provided by an intact ecosystem exceeds
services that might otherwise be ignored when making manage- the value of a converted ecosystem by two times or more
ment decisions, and can be used to inform the identication of (see Figure 3.2).
risks and opportunities as described in step ve below. Building markets for ecosystem services. Global carbon markets
A decision makers goals will determine whether economic valua- and payment for ecosystem service initiatives such as the Costa
tion is necessary; therefore, this step is optional. In some cases, it may Rican scheme to pay forest owners for watershed protection
be more important to examine health or poverty impacts of ecosys- (see Table 5.1) are examples of novel ecosystem service markets
tem change, as opposed to economic impacts. In other instances based on the economic valuation of ecosystem services.
economic valuation can serve a number of purposes, including:
Communicating the value of ecosystem services by high- Researchers have developed a number of methods to quan-
lighting their economic contributions to societal goals. For tify the values associated with ecosystems (see Table 3.5). The
example, a study of Canadas boreal forest estimated its val- values fall into three categories, which combine to create the
ue in natural capital to be $93.2 billion in 2002 (Anielski Total Economic Value of an ecosystem:
and Wilson 2006). These values are useful to governments Direct use values include provisioning services (crops, timber,
when deciding how land should be used. etc.) and non-consumptive use (photography, tourism, etc.).
Comparing the cost-effectiveness of an investment. For Indirect use values include the regulating services of water
example, New York City compared the cost-effectiveness of ltration by wetlands, for example, or the natural hazard
maintaining natural ecosystem-based water purication services protection provided by mangroves.
with constructing and operating a ltration plant (see Box 3.1). Non-use values include, for example, any delight we take in
Evaluating the impacts of development policies. This the existence of a panda or mountain, or the importance
could include evaluating the ecosystem service costs we place on preserving that resource for our children.
associated with habitat conversion, runoff, or pollutant
discharge. It could also include looking at the benets of Direct use values tend to be the easiest to account for, be-
increased investment in enforcing environmental regula- cause they are often part of formal markets, such as the prots
tion and in strengthening resource management. A num- from the sale of forest products. Other values are more difcult
ber of studies have looked at the value of ecosystems under to measure. Non-use values are particularly challenging, and can

Table 3.5 Common Economic Valuation Methods


Method Approach Applications
Effect on Trace impact of change in ecosystem condition on the produced Any impact that affects produced goods (e.g., declines
productivity goods in soil quality affecting agricultural production)
Cost of illness, Trace impact of change in ecosystem services on morbidity and Any impact that affects health (e.g., air or water
human capital mortality pollution)
Replacement cost Use cost of replacing the lost good or service Any loss of goods or services (e.g., previously clean
water that now has to be puried in a plant; shoreline
protection once provided by mangroves or reefs)
Travel cost Derive demand curve from data on actual travel costs to estimate Recreation, tourism
recreational use value

Hedonic prices Extract effect of environmental factors on price of goods that include Air quality, scenic beauty, cultural benets (e.g., the
those factors higher market value of waterfront property, or houses
next to green spaces)
Avoided damages Model comparison of the damages avoided by having protection Shoreline protection services, erosion reduction, etc.
against natural disaster events such as earthquakes, hurricanes, and
ooding
Contingent Ask respondents directly their willingness to pay for a specied service Any service (e.g., willingness to pay to keep a local
valuation forest intact); can be used to estimate consumer
surplus (the benet above actual expenditure), social
value, and existence value
Choice modeling Ask respondents to choose their preferred option from a set of alter- Any service
natives with particular attributes
Benets transfer Use results obtained in one context in a different context (e.g., esti- Any service for which suitable comparison studies are
mating the value of one forest using the calculated economic value of available
a different forest of a similar size and type)
Source: Adapted from MA 2005b.

37 ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


typically only be estimated through a technique called contingent Box 3.3 Economic Valuation in Practice: Valuing
valuation, in which surveys are conducted of peoples willing- Coastal Resources in the Caribbean
ness to pay for the value in question. Although some valuations
attempt to estimate Total Economic Value, most studies only The Caribbean region has seen increasingly severe threats to its coastal
cover a subset of the component values, and hence need to be resources over the past decade, and faces difcult decisions regarding
trade-offs between certain types of development and tourism and further
considered lower-bound estimates on ecosystem value. degradation of its natural resources. A valuation effort led by the World
Resources Institute has produced a standardized method that can estimate
Limitations of economic valuation the economic value of coral reef and mangrove ecosystems and can
A major limitation of economic valuation is that the result- inform policy decisions in the region.
ing estimates are often highly subjective, being sensitive to The method relies primarily on existing, publicly available data, and is de-
signed as a collaborative process including government agencies and local
both the methods selected and assumptions used. The selected
NGOs in order to inform decision making across levels. Pilot applications in
ecosystem services to be valued, coupled with assumptions Tobago and St. Lucia, and a current application in Belize, evaluate the an-
on period of valuation (number of years) and discount rate nual net benets from coral reef and mangrove-associated sheries, tour-
(reecting how we value the future), will have profound effects ism, and shoreline protection services. Because it counts only use values
rather than relying on extensive surveys, the method derives lower-bound
on the estimates produced. Some techniques focus on narrow,
estimates of ecosystem value. The method can also be used to evaluate
marketable goods and services, which can be more accurately potential gains or losses in value by analyzing policy and management
estimated, but omit important non-market and non-use values. scenarios with different predicted ecosystem conditions.
In addition, inaccuracies exist because of incomplete under- Other examples of valuation in practice include New York Citys use of
standing of complex ecosystem processes and inherent biologi- the Catskills (Box 3.1) and the conversion of mangroves to shrimp farms
cal uncertainties (for example, how much wetland is required (Figure 1.3).
to provide sufcient ood regulation or water ltration for a
population).
Finally, people are sometimes suspicious of valuation esti- STEP FIVE: IDENTIFY ECOSYSTEM SERVICE
mates because they worry the estimates have been developed RISKS AND OPPORTUNITIES
(perhaps inated) with an agenda in mind. Others object to Identifying the ecosystem servicerelated risks and opportu-
economic valuation of ecosystems because ecosystems have nities associated with a decision involves using the information
intrinsic valueindependent of the services they provide to gathered in earlier steps. Step ve can also draw on the results
humansthat cannot be quantied. of any scenarios (see chapter 4) that explore how ecosystem
services may change in the future.
Practical considerations in Risks and opportunities can relate to both the dependence
implementing economic valuations of the decisions goals on ecosystem services and how the deci-
A number of considerations can improve the usefulness of sion affects services that other stakeholders rely on. Questions
economic valuations and increase the likelihood that decision to consider when identifying risks and opportunities associated
makers will accept and take the resulting values into account. with ecosystem service dependencies and impacts include:
Conduct the analysis using a clear and fully disclosed Does the decision depend on ecosystem services that were
method. Be clear from the start on the assumptions used either previously unrecognized or in poorer condition than
and limitations of the results. previously known?
Engage local stakeholders in the process. Building local Development planners in Tanzania, for example, learned
capacity to undertake valuations or use the results of a that achieving their poverty reduction goal depended signi-
valuation can contribute to greater understanding of the cantly on promoting management of catchments to ensure
value of ecosystems to society and inform more robust sufcient water and energy was available to support peoples
development strategies. livelihoods in rural areas (United Republic of Tanzania 2005).
Develop estimates based on existing data and information In Rio Grande, the risk of ooding is well recognized. How-
systems whenever possible (see Box 3.3). Making use of ever, the ecosystem services assessment brought to light the role
information routinely collected by existing institutions of deforestation and wetland loss in exacerbating the effect of
increases the likelihood of similar valuations being imple- storms and degrading water quality, a risk that was not previ-
mented in the future, allowing examination of change over ously broadly understood.
time. Surveys can provide valuable information, but are Could the goals of the decision be jeopardized because users
somewhat subjective, and may be one-time events, unless are competing for an ecosystem service in limited supply? If so,
there is capacity to repeat the survey in the future. are cost-effective substitutes available?
Strive for realistic and accurate results. If results prove
smaller than desired, document the reasons, and clearly
note what is included and not. Inating results will likely
discredit the effort.

A SSES SIN G T HE C URREN T STATU S OF EC OSYSTE M S ER VICES 38


Table 3.6 Examples of Ecosystem Service Trade-offs
Example Ecosystem services
Decision Goal Example losers
winners decreased
Increasing one service at the expense of other services
Draining wetlands for Increase crops, Farmers, consumers Natural hazard regulation, Local communities including farmers
farming livestock water ltration and treatment and some downstream users of
freshwater
Increasing fertilizer Increase crops Farmers, consumers Fisheries, tourism (as a result Fisheries industry, coastal communi-
application of dead zones created by ties, tourism operators
excessive nutrients)
Converting forest to Increase timber Logging companies, Climate and water regula- Local communities, global
agriculture (temporarily), farmers, tion, erosion control, timber, community (from climate change),
crops, livestock, consumers cultural services local cultures
and biofuels
Converting ecosystems and their services into built assets
Coastal development Increase capital Local economy, Natural hazard regulation, Coastal communities, sheries
assets, create jobs government, sheries (as a result of removal industry (local and foreign),
developers of mangrove forests or increased risks to coastal businesses
wetlands)
Residential development Increase capital Local economy, gov- Ecosystem services associated Local communities, original property
replacing forests, agriculture assets, create jobs ernment, developers, with removed ecosystems owners and downstream communities
or wetlands home buyers
Competition among different users for limited services
Increased production of Reduce depen- Energy consumers, Use of crops for biofuels Consumers (rising food prices),
biofuel dency on foreign farmers, instead of food livestock industry
energy government
Increased water use in Develop upstream Upstream communi- Water downstream Downstream communities,
upstream communities areas ties, industries industries

The scenarios in the Rio Grande story highlight the poten- When identifying risks and opportunities, it can be helpful
tial for competition among users of maize for food and fuel and to think of ecosystem service changes in terms of trade-offs.
note that imports of food might be needed (see chapter 4). In Trade-offs arise from management choices or actions that
the real world, Mexicos experience shows that the substitute intentionally or otherwise alter the quantity or quality of an
might not be as healthy or inexpensive as local food. In the rst ecosystem service in order to achieve a goal.
month of 2007, Mexicans faced prices for tortillas that had Assessing trade-offs involves identifying the different groups
more than tripled in six months when maize prices rose as a re- that will win and lose in the short term as well as the long term
sult of the rapidly growing demand for ethanol also made from as a result of changes to ecosystem services. Trade-offs can in-
corn. Poorer Mexicans substituted cheaper but less nutritious volve economic losses (see previous step), or losses to the health
noodles for tortillas (Roig-Franzia 2007). and well-being of certain populations (see Table 3.6). For
Are there any unforeseen impacts of the decision on ecosystem example, a study by the Trust for Public Lands and the Ameri-
services that others depend on for their well-being? can Water Works Association in the United States analyzed
In Rio Grande the assessment revealed that a biofuel strategy the relationship between watershed forest cover and municipal
that did not consider the dependence and impacts on ecosys- water treatment costs. In 25 watersheds, they found that every
tem services could result in the conversion of large amounts 10 percent loss in forest cover leads to a 12 percent increase in
of land now forested to growing crops for biofuel. This would water treatment costs. Although some people would benet
affect the watersheds already degraded capacity to reduce from forest clearing (for either timber or land development), a
oodwaters and lter drinking water. Higher rates of runoff greater number of people would be affected by the loss of the
from increased fertilizer and pesticide use after storms would ecosystem service of water ltration and purication, and have
likely have a negative impact on water quality. to pay more for their drinking water (Ernst 2004).
Several tools can help identify and assess ecosystem service
trade-offs in relation to human well-being (see Box 3.4).
Approaches such as poverty and ecosystem service mapping
can help assess the impacts on vulnerable groups, such as the
rural poor, by assessing the links between ecosystem services and
indicators of poverty. Economic valuation (see step four) is also
an increasingly popular tool for assessing and communicating the

39 ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


Box 3.4 Tools for Analyzing Trade-offs

Poverty and ecosystem service mapping overlays geo-referenced statistical information on poverty with spatial data on ecosystem services.
The resulting maps can highlight important relationships, such as how the location of poverty compares with the distribution of services; which
areas provide critically important services to the poor; who has access to natural resources; who benets; and who bears the cost of changes to
ecosystem services. Such overlays do not show causality, but suggest focus for further analysis (WRI et al. 2007).
Economic valuation assigns an economic value to ecosystem services that do not have a value in the market place (step four and Table 3.5),
such as regulating and certain cultural services. The resulting information can draw attention to the value of ecosystem services that might other-
wise be ignored when making decisions that affect ecosystems. In general, economic valuation is effective in persuading decision makers of the
value of ecosystem services by highlighting their economic contributions to societal goals; comparing the costs and benets of ecosystem service
protection versus engineering alternatives; and building markets for ecosystem services, such as global carbon markets or stewardship incentive
programs for farmers.
Alternatives to Slash and Burn (ASB) Matrix is a tool to assess the multi-scale impacts of alternative land uses at the margins of tropical for-
ests. Different land uses are scored against criteria that reect the objectives of different interest or use groups. The ASB matrix can be adapted for
other ecosystems, but should always comprise indicators for a range of ecosystem services at different scales. This might include indicators for one
or two regulating services that have global additive effects (carbon storage), indicators of national signicance (development indices), and indica-
tors of signicance to local populations (agronomic sustainability and the availability of credit, markets, and technology) (Tomich et al. 2005).
Action Impact Matrix assesses the two-way interactions between development goals and ecosystems by exploring the effects of development
goals on ecosystems as well as the effects of ecosystems on development. It can be used to determine economic, environmental, and social priori-
ties that facilitate management and restoration of ecosystem services. The tool is best used as part of a participative process (Munasinghe 2007).
Irreplaceability mapping can be used to assess trade-offs between food services and biodiversity. Food production is divided into two types:
calorie production (cereal) and protein (meat). Based on targets for calories, protein, and biodiversity, irreplaceability values are assigned to map
grid cells. In the Gariep Basin in Southern Africa, these ranged from 0 (many options in other locations to achieve goals) to 1 (totally irreplace-
able). While no site was found to be irreplaceable for protein and calorie goals, several sites were irreplaceable for biodiversity. This information
supports a land use plan that guides protection of sites with a high degree of irreplaceable biodiversity, while steering grazing or cultivation to
other sites (MA 2005b; Bohensky et al. 2004).

economic impacts of changes in the supply of ecosystem services. How a community like Rio Grande can use policies to
In the case of Rio Grandes development plans, risks include: advance development while sustaining ecosystem services is
Degradation of freshwater and negative impacts on local explored in the nal chapter. The next chapter describes the
sheries, tourism, and recreation as a result of increased wa- use of scenarios to explore changes to ecosystem
ter pollution from actions to increase the supply of crops; services in the future.
Reduction in natural hazard regulation services of wet-
lands and a resulting increase in the vulnerability of coastal
community to hurricanes and storms because of wetland
conversion; and ACTION POINTS
Reduction in crops available for food as a result of com- l Identify the ecosystem services that a policy, plan, or
project depends on and affects.
petition for the use of crops as food versus biomass fuel
leading to rising food prices and impacts on the well-being l Screen the ecosystem services to determine which are most
relevant.
of vulnerable groups.
l Conduct an assessment of the selected ecosystem services.
Opportunities for Rio Grande include: l Assess the need for conducting an ecosystem service
valuation and use if appropriate.
Improving the use efciency of ecosystem services by
adopting practices that allow for the joint production of l Identify the ecosystem service risks and opportunities
associated with a policy, plan or project.
food and fuel with the same crop;
Enhancing the natural hazard regulation service of coastal
wetlands by investing in coastal wetland restoration as a
strategy to reduce storm impacts on coastal communities
with co-benets for sheries, recreation, and ecotourism;
Enhancing the supply of freshwater by increasing the water
ltration, purication, and erosion control services of forests,
wetlands, and riparian zones in the upper watershed; and
Reducing impacts of farming on freshwater quality by
minimizing fertilizer and pesticide runoff.

ASSESSING THE CURRENT STATUS OF ECOSYSTEM SER VICES 40


The
3 Decision C O N T I N U E S

Where the
technical team
goes to work
Where are we supposed to start? asked
one of the students.
The Professor had assembled a team of
four researchers, and they were now looking
at the questions that came out of the Steering
Committee. The scientists were not used to
the kind of questions in front of them and the
task seemed impossible.
Trade-offs, said the Professor. The
regions ecosystems are already under stress,
especially from the combination of agricultural,
urban, and industrial expansion. This biofuel
industry will exacerbate trade-offs among eco-
system services. People are not aware that the
consequences of this factory go well beyond
its local impact. Costs and benets will ripple
throughout the region and society in unex-
pected ways. We need to show very clearly the
choices that are at stake.
Baselines, another researcher said. First
we need to know what the situation is today
and the direction things are moving.
We should start by identifying which
ecosystem services to focus on. The Steering
Committee can then decide which are most
important to them.
I think they are more concerned about
the human dimensions: the economy, health,
vulnerability to storms, inequality, the price of
food, clean water, and so on. We should start
by identifying these variables.
Heres what well do, said the Professor
as he sketched a diagram. First, we dene
which ecosystem services are of interest and
what their value is. Is it water ows for the
reneries? Flood protection for the city?
Recreation? Fuel crops? Food? Then we look
at the consequences of the biofuel industry
for ecosystem services in the region. Will it af-

41 E C OS Y S T E M SE R V I CE S : A G U I D E F O R D E C I SI O N MA K ERS
fect water quality and quantity? Soil fertility? Biodiversity? Then we dene the dimensions of human well-being with
which these services are most strongly associated. How will changes in these ecosystem services affect health and
employment? Will drinking water be affected? How will property value change? How will coastal communities liveli-
hood be affected? And then we analyze the trade-offs. Easy.
Im afraid I still dont understand what you mean by trade-offs.
Its another way of saying that any further changes to our ecosystems will come at a cost, said the Professor.
The biofuel industry will demand more crops, so agriculture will expand most likely at the expense of the forest. In
other words, the river basin will be changed to accommodate more crop production. The provisioning of those crops
is one ecosystem service that will be enhanced. But at the same time, more agriculture will reduce the quality of the
water that reaches the city because of pesticides and fertilizers. The quantity of water might be affected, too; wheth-
er there will be more water because of deforestation or less due to irrigation or regional climate change, we dont
know. Maybe both. Also, sheries may be altered in the coastal area and tourism is likely to be affected as well. Even
the local climate might change! So, as you extract more of one service, crops, from the river basin, you degrade ve
other services: water quantity, water quality, sh production, recreation, and climate regulation. Thats a trade-off.
But the factory will create new jobs in the city and more business for farmers. The economic gains are clear.
Yes, although some will lose. Fishermen and tourism operators will suffer, small peasants might be forced to sell
their land and migrate. The price of food might go up, harming the poorer sectors. If water quality deteriorates and
there are more oods, there will be a health and security cost associated, too.
And we need to look at the longer term consequences as well. Decreases in quality of water could lead to higher
costs of water due to purication requirements. Decreases in quantity of water could affect the renery itself in the
future, and uncontrolled expansion of biofuel crop production could lead to soil erosion, sedimentation, and ood
problems, which could have a negative impact on the success of the business itself.
You see? We need to produce information that shows all these things to the Steering Committee so they know
the consequences of their decisions.

For once, a eld trip involved more interaction with people than
with plants and animals. After long discussions about methods, the
Professor felt it was time to go see the actual places and people.
As they traveled around the area one student realized she was not
aware of how much was going on in her region and started writing
down questions that the team needed to answer. What are the cur-
rent land uses in the Rio Grande basin?
First stop, the shing community. Over my dead body they will
build that factory. Coming from a sherman, the threat had to be
taken seriously. Why? Before, a week out with your boat would fetch
enough to feed the family for a month. Today, you wont get even half
that. They say its the foreign eets out there in the sea. But I think its
the water thats coming down poisoned. It started with the big expan-
sion twenty years ago. The new factory will only make it worse.
The student scribbled: How resilient are the sheries in the
coastal area to increased nutrient loads and pollution? How
much pressure are international shing eets putting on sh stocks captured locally? If pollution
pressure increases, could the sh stocks be pushed to depletion?
Next stop, the southern, poorer quarters of the city. Now they are all scared about the oods.
Weve seen much worse in 68, and 78! The only difference was, back then no one lived here. These
were farmlands! They want to build a factory here? Good. Lots of people need work.

THE DECISION 42
The
3 Decision C O N T I N U E S

How much water currently


ows in the locations where the
reneries could be built? What
would be the impacts of land
conversion on ood control,
sedimentation in the river, pollu-
tion levels, and the health of the
population? Will the cost of water
purication for drinking increase?
Will the factory benet these peo-
ple by providing jobs?
You experts think you know
better, but we know very well how
to treat the land, said a farmer up-
stream, close to the forest. Weve
been doing it for ages and we have
no intentions of destroying the
basis of our business. Even though
crop prices uctuate, international demand is
strong, and the biofuel market will only strengthen it.
Our country cannot afford to miss this opportunity! The law
that promotes biofuels is good. There is more than enough
forest in national parks if thats what worries you.
Once we start producing the information, we must make sure
these people understand it, the student thought as she continued
to take notes. How much food is being produced and over how much
surface? What are the agricultural needs of the biofuel complex and
how much land might be converted to agriculture? The national govern-
ment is offering subsidies to farmers growing biofuel crops.
The tour ended at a popular coffee shop. Last summer we had about 10,000 tourists coming through town,
mostly to visit the forests and the coast, said the owner as she offered them coffee. But I think the place is losing
its charm. If its true what they say about the biofuel factory it will only be a matter of time until tourism collapses.
How many people will benet from the reneries versus how many people currently benet from food produc-
tion, sheries, and tourism?

I think we should focus on gathering information on the regions water quality and quantity, concluded the
student during the debrieng. Both are related to the success of the national biofuel development goal, the safety
and cost of drinking water for town residents, and the sustainability of agriculture, tourism, and shing industries. As
to the scale of analysis, we must look at ecosystem services at the watershed scale. The trade-offs clearly involve the
highland agricultural areas, the city downstream, and the coastal area.

43 E C OS Y S T E M SE R V I CE S : A G U I D E F O R D E C I SI O N MA K ERS
The team nally agreed to propose to the Committee twelve ecosystem services to study:
l food from crops, that is, the ability of the river basin to provide food through agricultural activity;
l food from sheries, or the ability of the whole system to sustain artisanal shing;
l the ability of the river basin system to provide ber for the production of energy in the form of biofuels;
l the quantity of freshwater that the system provides for domestic, industrial, and agricultural use;
l the regulation of water ows in the system;
l the ability of the system to purify water for human consumption and treat waste;
l the climate regulation function that the ecosystem performs locally (temperature and local precipitation regime);
l the role of the system in preventing soil erosion;
l natural pest control performed by the basins ecosystems;
l the support of pollination;
l protection against natural hazards such as storms and oods; and
l the recreational role that the basins ecosystems play, in particular their role in sustaining ecotourism.

The team searched the published literature and found several studies on the impact of biofuel reneries on wa-
ter. National data bases included information on food production for the region, and satellite imagery was used to
calculate the area of land currently under production. Another literature review turned up studies on how defor-
estation, soil type, and slope interact in this area in terms of erosion and ood control. The municipal waterworks
department submitted a report on the robustness of current water treatment facilities and how they would with-
stand increases in sediment and pollutants in the river. And the team went out to conduct structured interviews with
the different groups involved.
To determine whose well-being would increase and whose would decrease in the event that a renery was built,
they obtained from the municipal and regional governments data about trends in household income within the sh-
ing community, the farming community, and key neighborhoods. They also looked at the economic signicance of
the tourism industry for the region. Data was also available about mortality and incidence of waterborne diseases
across social groups.
The picture of the current state of the region was taking shape, and the team produced a report card (see page
35) that summarized the status of ecosystem services. In essence, they found that the current situation was neither
great, nor dismal. Over the last few decades, ve of the twelve ecosystem services studied had remained more or less
unaltered by human activity: the regions ecosystems continued to provide ber for biofuels, freshwater in good quan-
tity, regulation of soil erosion, pest control, and pollination. Five ecosystem services had been degraded: functions
such as the provisioning of food from sheries, climate regulation, water regulation, water purication, and protec-
tion against natural hazards. Only two services had been enhanced: ecosystems today yielded more food from crops
and more recreation opportunities than in the past. These two last services were very important to Rio Grande, but so
was the citys dependence on the ve services that were being degraded. So there was cause for concern.
The greatest worry, however, came from the trends in the drivers that were causing the degradation: the pressure
of almost all of these drivers was increasing. The conversion of forest to biofuel production, the use of pesticides
and fertilizers, overexploitation of sheries by industrial eets, global climate change, population growth, economic
growth--all were growing in intensity. If these trends continued unchanged it would not be long before all ecosys-
tem services started to degrade, together with the quality of life in Rio Grande.

THE DECISION 44
C H A P T E R

Lead Authors
4
Monika Zurek
Reinette Biggs
Ciara Raudsepp-Hearne
Why explore alternative futures ................................................... 46
Contributing Authors
The scenarios approach ................................................................. 47 Elena Bennett
Kasper Kok
Benets of a scenarios process ....................................................... 52 Sandra J. Velarde

PHOTOS BY GETTY IMAGES


Exploring Future Trends in
Ecosystem Services

C
ollecting information on the current condition
and trends of ecosystem services and identify- KEY LEARNINGS
ing the drivers that affect human well-being Looking into the future in a systematic way can
results in an understanding of current changes strengthen decision making by identifying trade-offs
to ecosystem services, as discussed in chapter 3. across ecosystem services.
Decision makers also need to look into the future to assess the
effectiveness of policy options for addressing ecosystem change.
For complex systems like ecosystems, gauging future outcomes By considering various interactions
comes with high uncertainty. Much of what is observed in eco- and future changes in society and eco-
systems is poorly understood, and trends in ecosystem services system services, decision makers can identify the policies most
might change in unexpected ways as people continue to use likely to achieve their goals. In the case of Rio Grande, growing
and affect the environment. In addition, different stakeholder international demand for biofuels, coupled with a national bio-
groups may hold very different views about what constitute fuel goal, will drive changes in agriculture. These changes affect
appropriate strategies for managing ecosystems. the capacity of the upper watershed to supply the city with
This chapter introduces scenario planning as one tool for clean drinking water and food. The national plan also attracts
thinking creatively about possible future outcomes of a deci- international interests seeking to invest in the citys proposed
sion and discusses how it can be used in conjunction with an biofuel plant.
Ecosystem Services Approach to strengthen decision making. Another important feature of the interactions between soci-
Scenario planning explicitly considers alternative future path- eties and ecosystems is that change is often not linear or grad-
ways and the relationship between todays decisions and the ual. Rather, it occurs abruptly or accelerates once a threshold
future. The chapter rst explains the importance of exploring is crossed. Crossing a threshold can have enormous impacts on
uncertainties about future trends and assumptions about the ecological and social systems, as many examples have shown.
future. The second section describes the scenarios approach as These include the collapse of the North Atlantic cod shery as
one way of thinking through possible future developments, and described in chapter 2, and the huge costs to power companies
describes the basic steps of a scenarios exercise. The last section after the zebra mussel invaded North American Great Lakes,
describes some of the outcomes of scenario planning. which also resulted in the disappearance of some native clams
(MA 2005b).
Decision makers trying to avoid such threshold-related
WHY EXPLORE ALTERNATIVE FUTURES changes in ecosystem services face two major problems. First,
Many development policies result in unintended conse- it is difcult to recognize such thresholds until they have been
quencesa sh species imported for food becomes an invasive crossed. Second, inertia in the ecological system or a delay in
predator, water diverted for irrigation leaves soil overburdened societys response means that even if the impending threshold is
with salt. Policy makers must explicitly consider how their identied, it may be too late to avoid crossing it. Looking into
decisions today may shape the future, and how future trends the future in a systematic, structured way, as discussed in this
may differ from the past. chapter, can help to alert decision makers to possible thresholds
Unintended consequences arise in part because of the nu- along certain development pathways as well as to broaden the
merous and complex linkages between societies and ecosystems. understanding of all the important factors shaping the future.
Changes in one sector usually have impacts elsewhere, some The choices of decision makers, which can potentially result
of which may be unexpected. For example, international trade in crossing an ecological threshold or creating other unintend-
agreements and food prices may directly affect the extent of ed consequences, are often based on underlying assumptions or
land clearing and the choice of crops made by farmers in Brazil beliefs about the likely future outcomes of their decisions. Cer-
or Uganda. Such interconnections across geographical scales or tain trends are assumedoften erroneouslyto continue as
time scales make it difcult to foresee the implications of deci-
sions that depend on or affect ecosystem services. If only a few
interactions are taken into account, the intended outcomes of a
decision may be compromised.

E XP L O RIN G F U TU RE TR E NDS IN E C OS YS TE M S E R VIC E S 46


they have in the past. At the same time, other stakeholders may
have different assumptions. Exploring how the future could
unfold can provide unexpected insights into often implicit as- KEY LEARNINGS
sumptions as well as into the limits of understanding. One tool for looking into the future, scenario planning,
is especially useful when considering the links between
In southern Africa, for example, plans that aim to promote ecosystem services and development.
economic growth and development through agriculture based
on knowledge of past rainfall patterns and agricultural potential
would run into trouble, given that climate change could result in
rainfall reductions of more than 50 percent (MA 2005c). Deci- THE SCENARIOS APPROACH
sions about resource use by individuals as well as by national and Methods to help decision makers systematically think
regional governments need to take into account future climatic about the future and draw lessons for todays decisions include
conditions (Scholes and Biggs 2004). Considering southern predictions, projections, explorations, and scenario analysis (see
Africas future also reveals that aiming to increase water supply, Figure 4.1). All seek to clarify expectations about the drivers
such as through engineered water transfers and withdrawal of of change that will shape the future and/or test ideas about the
nonrenewable groundwater supplies, would be unsustainable in expected outcomes of todays decisions or policies. Of these
this region. This realization shifts the focus from the supply-side methods, scenario planning (or scenario analysis) has emerged
strategies typically used in the past, and might prompt deci- as the most appropriate tool for complex systems like ecosys-
sion makers to explore strategies for reducing water demand or tems. Scenario planning has recently become an important
increasing efciency, such as through water pricing. part of integrated environmental assessments, including those
Taken together, the unexamined assumptions of decision conducted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
makers, along with linkages across geographical scales, non-lin- and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.
ear changes, and high connectivity between societies and eco- Decision makers often have some understanding of the
systems, largely explain why many social and economic policies drivers of ecosystem service change; still they need to incorpo-
result in unintended consequences. Scenarios are one tool that rate different world views and sources of knowledge in their
can help decision makers consider how the future may differ decision making (Peterson et al. 2003). As Figure 4.1 suggests,
from the past, and minimize the unintended consequences. scenario planning is especially valuable when uncertainty is
highthat is, when relatively little is known or perceptions
Figure 4.1 Tools for Addressing Future differ greatly about the causes and effects of a systems dynam-
Uncertainty and Complexity ics. This is often the case when integrating social and economic
planning with ecosystem management.
The goal of scenario planning is to consider a variety of
high possible futures reecting important uncertainties, rather than
to focus on an accurate prediction of a single outcome (Van
der Heijden 1996). Scenarios are therefore not predictions,
projections, or forecasts. They are stories about the future,
Sp

told as a set of plausible alternative futures about what


ec
Complexity

ul

might happen under particular assumptions (MA 2003). In


at
Ex

io

contrast to forecasts or predictions, scenarios do not assume


pl

ns
or
Sc

at

that existing conditions will continue, or that the future will


io
e na

ns

necessarily extrapolate from todays trends. Instead scenario


Pr

rio
oj
e

planning encourages creative thinking about possible events


ct
Pr

io
ns
ed

or changes in society or ecosystems that might have powerful


ict

impacts on the future.


io
ns
Fa

Scenarios usually assume that current developments will


ct
s

low change in the future, sometimes in unexpected ways. For


low Uncertainty high instance, a breakdown of the Doha World Trade Organization
negotiations could change the pace and extent of globalization.
The longer it takes to reach an agreement, the more likely it
Scenarios, which can incorporate explorations and projections, is that some parties might change their positions and turn to
are especially suitable for addressing the high uncertainty and
complexity typical of socio-ecological systems. Reprinted from bilateral rather than global agreements. This might keep certain
Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 74, Zurek, M. and
H. Thomas, Linking scenarios across geographical scales in trade barriers in place, or hinder the ow of information and/or
international environmental assessments, 14, 2007, with
permission from Elsevier. technologies across borders.

47 ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


Table 4.1 Steps in Scenario Development and Relevance to Policymaking
Scenario Type of information Relevance to the
Activities
development steps * generated policymaking process
1) Decide on the focal Discuss historical developments that led to analysis of current problems and their identifying issues
questions present situation roots, based on stakeholder analysis framing issues
Identify main uncertainties for the future analysis of key questions for the future identifying stakeholders to be
Identify focal questions (main problems) clear understanding of main assumptions engaged in decision process
to be addressed by the scenarios for the future of the investigated system

2) Identify main drivers List main drivers that will change analysis of main drivers shaping the framing issues
of ecosystem change the future future and their importance prioritizing information
Identify possible driver trajectories, thresh- voicing of different view points on driv- informing policy selection
olds and uncertainty about them ers trajectories and their importance
Identify main interactions between drivers understanding of systems interactions,
development of a systems perspective

3) Develop the scenarios Develop rst drafts of scenario storylines creative ideas about the future and identifying decision points
Translate storylines into model inputs and emerging changes evaluating policy options
execute a modeling exercise (optional) challenges for assumptions on drivers selecting policy
Finalize scenarios based on critical as- interactions, consistency checks designing monitoring systems
sessment of storylines (qualitative) and grounding of qualitative knowledge
modeling (quantitative) results, based also through modeling
on stakeholder discussions

4) Analyze across the Conduct analysis across the assessment of trade-offs and synergies identifying policy options
scenarios scenarios set of various management options evaluating policy options
Discuss scenarios analysis results information to different stakeholders developing strategies for policy
for various stakeholder groups on differing view points implementation and monitoring
Write-up and disseminate scenario awareness of emerging issues for the
exercise future

* Although the steps are described in a linear way, in practice there is much iteration among them.

Scenario planning can be adapted to many different decision- to test policy options for achieving a specic development goal
making contexts. It has been used either to explore how societ- (to sustain freshwater supplies, for example) and to explore
ies and ecosystems would change in various plausible futures the consequences for a variety of issues (how different water
(exploratory scenarios), or to create various future pathways as a use policies might affect business competitiveness, agricultural
test of possible policy options (policy or anticipatory scenarios) production, or income distribution structures). An example
(see also chapter 5). Scenarios are well-suited to participatory de- of a scenarios exercise on the interactions between people and
cision-making processes (Wollenberg et al. 2000) and have been ecosystems is the one carried out by the Millennium Ecosystem
used by the strategic planning as well as the business community Assessment on the Caribbean Sea ecosystem (see Box 4.1);
for several decades (Schwartz 1996). Today more and more natu- more information on the outcomes and benets of a scenarios
ral resource managers use this tool to explore new management exercise is provided in the last section.
approaches (Bennett et al. 2003) as scenarios can be particularly Before starting the actual scenario building process, the
responsive to the concerns of stakeholders affected by a decision purpose of the exercise should be clearly identied, as should the
and can incorporate their knowledge on the issue. main participants, who may be stakeholders affected by a deci-
Scenarios need not require quantitative modeling. They can sion, scientists exploring various future trends to inform decision
be built using qualitative methods (based on the expert knowl- making, or a mixture of both. The scenario building team will
edge of local land users, government ofcials, scientists, or oth- need to make a substantial commitment of time (two or more
ers), or be based on quantitative, scientic modeling approaches, workshops lasting two to four days). Careful facilitation is
or a combination of the two (Alcamo 2001; MA 2005c). A sce- important for managing power imbalances, language differences,
nario planning exercise for deciding on a development strategy, and expectations among participants. The focus should remain
using both qualitative and quantitative methods, can be broken on the issues of highest interest and relevance to the target audi-
down into four steps (see Table 4.1). Each step generates differ- ence. The scenarios building process needs to be legitimate and
ent kinds of information useful to decision makers. rigorous so that the scenarios have credibility among stakeholders
For example, identifying the main uncertainties in the (see chapter 2 for more on this) or the main audience.
future can highlight important issues for stakeholders and help What follows is a description of the steps in scenario building
elicit their views. Providing information on future drivers of that are outlined in Table 4.1, considering the case of Rio Grande.
ecosystem services change can complement information de-
rived from chapter 3 on current drivers and inform the policy
selection process described in chapter 5. Scenarios can be built

EXPL ORIN G F UT URE TREN DS IN EC OSYSTEM SER VICES 48


Box 4.1 Scenarios for the Caribbean Sea

As part of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Caribbean Sea study, a scenario planning exercise evaluated the state of the Caribbean Sea
marine ecosystems and threats and opportunities for their management in the future. The scenarios exercise was carried out with the follow-
ing focal questions:
l What governance mechanisms can be used to reduce the regions economic, social, and environmental vulnerability?
l How can maintenance and management of ecosystem services proceed to improve human well-being in the Caribbean?
l How can economic activity be organized and managed so that natural resource benets are distributed equitably between local and
external interests relative to costs? How can the interests of users of services be linked with their investments in the region?
l Will current trends in the decline of Caribbean Sea coastal and marine ecosystems exceed ecological thresholds and result in signicant
consequences for human well-being?
The following main uncertainties were identied:
l Tourism forms (mass versus eco-sensitive niche tourism), numbers
l Fisheries resource mining versus sustainable use
l Land use change habitat change and loss of valued ecosystems
l Population dynamics, equity, and consumption patterns
l Governance mechanisms
l Climate variability and change

From this analysis the two most important uncertainties for the future were derived:
l Externally controlled versus internally driven development
l Regional integration versus fragmentation

These two key uncertainties dened the main themes of four scenarios, which are similar to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment global scenarios:
Neo-plantation economy: The Neo-plantation economy is driven by a demand for ecosystem services that are mostly enjoyed by people
from outside the region. In this scenario, the Caribbean remains primarily a zone of production and extraction, as it has been for much of the
past 500 years.
Quality over quantity: This scenario emphasizes the careful, sustainable management of scarce natural and market resources at a scale
appropriate to the small island and developing states of the region. Diversication and increased resilience to unforeseen changes is a primary
goal of the overall management process, for both the public and private sectors.
Diversify together: This scenario is based on the two themes of increasing regional levels of cooperation and deepening regional economic integration.
Growing asymmetries: This scenario explores some of the possible consequences of increasing global trends toward market liberalization
for goods, services, and capital without proper consideration of differences and inequities among countries, regions, and social groups.

Source: MA 2005e.

Step one: Decide on the focal questions Step two: Identify main
Scenario planning starts with identifying the most important drivers of ecosystem change
problems and the main uncertainties in the future. Ideally this The second step extends the analysis of drivers of ecosystem
will be informed by data on the current condition and trends change in chapters 2 and 3 to include the future. Speci-
of ecosystem services (as described in chapter 3). This step cally, it involves identifying the main drivers of change in
might reveal the need for further information gathering, and the future. This is especially helpful for considering indirect
some iteration between the steps of gathering information on drivers, as their interactions, which are shaping direct drivers
ecosystem services and building scenarios may be useful. trajectories in the future, can be difcult to assess over short
This rst step of scenario building can also include a look into time frames. The list of drivers identied in chapter 2 is a
the past to familiarize participants with changing development useful starting point for thinking about the drivers that will
patterns. Then the main uncertainties or questions for the future have a direct impact on the problem(s) identied by the focal
are identied, along with the focal questions for the exercise. Par- questions.
ticipants may decide not to tackle all identied problems, but to In Rio Grande, direct drivers include land use change
prioritize the most pressing or persistent ones. The participants from agricultural expansion, deforestation, and city sprawl.
will also have to discuss the time frame for the scenarios, balanc- These direct drivers are often determined by a set of underly-
ing the short-term time horizon of many planning processes and ing, indirect drivers (such as population or economic growth
the slow, long-term nature of ecosystem changes. patterns) and their interactions. Discussing the interactions
In Rio Grande, the focal questions concerned connections be- between drivers can help identify possible ecosystem thresholds
tween various issues, such as the connection of the city with its sur- that will not just change the course of one driver but affect
rounding watershed and the impacts of the proposed biofuel plant. the functioning of the whole system. In Rio Grande, the main
indirect drivers are globalization, which opens the country to
foreign investments, and the attitude of decision makers, such
as government ofcials, business people, or farmers, toward
environmental management.

49 ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


In building scenarios, participants need to rank all the driv-
Table 4.2 Options for Comparing Scenarios
ers with respect to their importance for the identied problems,
document the reasons for the ranking, and discuss why and Options for comparing Example from the Millennium
across the scenarios Ecosystem Assessment scenarios
how the drivers interact. The possible trends and trajectories for
Look for future Same trend of rising world population up
each driver should be discussed, such as the expected highest/ developments that are the to 2050 in all scenarios, then stabilization;
lowest population numbers over the scenarios time horizon, or same in all scenarios exact population numbers in 2050 differ.
possible economic growth rates and patterns in the future. It is Global forest area declines up to 2050 in
all scenarios: velocity of trends differs.
also important to identify how different participants perceive
these trends and how certain they are about how they will play Look for uncertain future Number of malnourished children in
developments, which differ 2050 differs widely among scenarios.
out in the future and why. This will help uncover participants across scenarios Quality and quantity of available water
main assumptions about the future. resources by 2050 differ widely among
regions and across scenarios.

Step three: Develop the scenarios Identify trade-offs described Risk of trading off long-term environmen-
in the scenarios tal sustainability for fast improvement in
The third step involves developing a set of stories about the fu- human systems (Global Orchestration).
ture that describe how the important drivers could interact and Risk of trading off solutions to global
unfold in different ways. Each scenario is based on a specic environmental problems (requiring global
cooperation) for improving local environ-
set of assumptions about the drivers and develops them over ments (focusing on local solutions only)
the scenario time horizon. This can be done with or without (Adapting Mosaic).
a quantitative modeling exercise. For developing qualitative sto- Risk of trading off biodiversity conservation
for food security (Global Orchestration).
ries, scenario builders can draw on whatever tools are available
to stimulate creative thinking that generates interesting and Identify policy options that Major investments in public goods and
make sense in all scenarios poverty reduction, together with elimina-
even provocative, but still plausible, descriptions of the future. tion of harmful trade barriers and subsidies.
If the time and resources for computer modeling are Widespread use of adaptive ecosystem
available, simulations can be run to quantify future trends management and investment in education.
Signicant investments in technologies to
of drivers (such as population, GDP, consumption patterns, use ecosystem services more efciently,
lifestyle choices) and possible outcomes for ecosystems and along with widespread inclusion of
their services (such as food production, climate change or water ecosystem services in markets.

availability). Each model run is based on specic assumptions For details on the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment scenarios see box 4.2.
on drivers trajectories and their interactions. Model runs can
take a few months to complete, depending on their complexity. Step four: Analyze across the scenarios
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, for example, devel- The nal step in scenario building involves analyzing the impli-
oped four global scenarios (see Box 4.2 on page 51) for which cations of the scenario storylines for informing decisions taken
models were run to simulate future land use patterns and today or in the near future. Much of the value of the scenarios
climate change (IMAGE, AIM), food availability and demand exercise lies in being able to compare different outcomes. The
(IMPACT), water availability (WATERGAP) and global sher- comparison can reveal unanticipated results and provide differ-
ies resources (ECOSIM) under particular assumptions about ent stakeholder groups with insights about the outcomes of the
socio-economic and technological developments, which were future pathways they may have advocated.
based on qualitative scenario storylines. There are a number of ways to compare outcomes of differ-
Combining qualitative and quantitative scenario develop- ent scenarios (see Table 4.2). In general, lessons can be drawn
ment techniques, as in the case of the Millennium Ecosystem from focusing on either the similarities or differences in trends
Assessment scenarios, can produce comprehensive narratives. across the scenarios. These can be connected to the policy
Sometimes several iterations between qualitative and quantita- choices made along the different pathways. Lessons for decision
tive techniques will be needed to achieve consistent scenarios. making can also be drawn by comparing the risks taken and
Participants in the Rio Grande process built stories of the benets gained by different groups of society, for example, or
future around the intersections of drivers identied in step by mapping out the trade-offs in each scenario.
two. They combined statistical information and projections For Rio Grande, a number of differences emerge in the
of population and GDP with assumptions about technology outcomes of two scenarios based on different assumptions for
development, equity and globalization to create three scenarios. ecosystem change drivers (see Table 4.3). In the rst scenario
(We become globalized), the economy grows rapidly, but
the provisioning of ecosystem services deteriorates as little
attention is paid to ecosystem management in the watershed.
In the second scenario (Communities rst), a set of diverse

EXPL ORIN G F UT URE TREN DS IN EC OSYSTEM SER VICES 50


Box 4.2 The Global Scenarios of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and their Outcomes

The scenarios exercise of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment resulted a world with a socially conscious globalization that emphasizes
in four global-scale scenarios. They extend to 2050 in detail, with an economic growth, social reform, and equity, but decision makers take
outlook for some important issues, such as climate change, to 2100. a reactive approach toward environmental problems. In the Order from
The four scenarios all incorporate various indirect and direct socio-eco- Strength scenario, decision makers also only deal with environmental
nomic, cultural, and biophysical driving forces of change in ecosystems degradation when it starts to seriously affect humans (reactive); at the
and their services and the related human well-being components. The same time they focus on national security issues and economic improve-
scenarios were designed to illuminate contrasting pathways into the ments only for their own countries.
future and their risks and benets; the driver interactions that would The two other scenarios depict a more environmentally conscious at-
set the world onto different trajectories; and their consequences for titude. The Adapting Mosaic scenario shows the outcome of a focus on
ecosystems, their services, and human well-being. experimentation, local learning, and adaptations to ecosystem change
The scenarios specically explore two key uncertainties for the and the introduction of more exible local governance structures for
future: if and how the world could become either more globalized environmental and social management, which overall leads to a more
or increasingly regionalized, and what consequences a more reactive regionalized world. The TechnoGarden scenario in contrast explores the
versus a more proactive approach to managing ecosystems and their possibilities of green technologies to manage all categories of ecosys-
services could have. tem services to support human systems in a more globalized world.
Each of the scenarios combines two possible directions these uncer- The outcomes for ecosystem services and human well-being compo-
tainties can take. The so-called Global Orchestration scenario portrays nents are illustrated below.

Net Changes in Availability of Provisioning, Regulating, and Cultural Ecosystem Services by 2050 for Industrial and Developing Countries.
The y-axis is the net percentage of ecosystem services enhanced or degraded. For example, 100% degradation of the six provisioning ecosystem services
would mean that all of these were degraded in 2050 relative to 2000, while 50% enhancement could mean that three were enhanced and the other
three were unchanged, or that four were enhanced, one was degraded, and the other two were unchanged.

Changes in ecosystem services in


Changes in ecosystem percentage
services
in percentage
100
Global Orchestration Order from Strength Adapting Mosaic TechnoGarden
80 Provisioning Regulating Cultural
Provisioning Provisioning
60 Regulating
IMPROVEMENT
40

20

20
Cultural
40
DEGRADATION
60 Industrial countries
Regulating Cultural
80 Provisioning Cultural Developing countries

100
Regulating

Source: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

51 ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


ecosystem management approaches are introduced that result Table 4.3 Rio Grande: Assumptions about Ecosystem
in better environmental conditions; in addition, developing the Drivers and Resulting Changes for Two Scenarios
local infrastructure and economy becomes a focus. However,
Drivers arrow denotes whether the trend of a driver is increasing ( ),
the economy of Rio Grande grows at a slower rate as a result continuing ( ) or decreasing ( )
of decisions to invest resources in environmental issues rather Ecosystem service status arrow denotes whether the supply of the
than just economic issues. service in the future will increase ( ), stay the same ( ) or decrease
( ) in the scenario
Among the four global scenarios generated for the Millen-
nium Ecosystem Assessment, there are signicant differences Scenario 1: Scenario 2:
We become Communities
in the status of ecosystem services 50 years from now: in one globalized rst
scenario overall ecosystem services degrade while in the other
Selected indirect driving forces of ecosystem change
scenarios these services improve but to different degrees, de-
pending on the chosen pathway. Population growth rate
of the city
Insights emerge from a process of questioning the assump-
tions made within one story or pathway and comparing its
Global integration
outcomes with another possible pathway into the future. This
analysis can clarify what we know and what is uncertain about
the future. It also sheds light on unexpected results of a particu- Economic growth (GDP)
lar pathway. In other words, the scenario analysis can reveal and
help policy makers avoid the unintended consequences that Social equity
often plague development projects.
Despite its benets, scenario planning has important limita- Technical change in
agriculture
tions. It can be time and resource consuming and requires
the sustained commitment of the scenario building team over Selected direct driving forces of ecosystem change
a substantial time horizon. In addition, scenario planning Land use change in
requires skilled facilitation, especially if contentious issues upper watershed
are discussed between stakeholder groups. Scenarios can also
Chemical input use
contribute to a false sense of certainty about the future, which in agriculture
is why careful use and dissemination is important. It should be
Outcomes for selected ecosystem services
stressed that scenario planning does not predict the future as it
will actually take place, but instead highlights plausible futures, Food crops
and particular assumptions and their consequences.

BENEFITS OF A SCENARIOS PROCESS Fiber energy (biofuel)

Decision makers often balk at the idea of building scenarios,


usually because it is unfamiliar and the process and outcomes may Water quantity
be unclear. Once underway, however, scenario building is often
described as exciting and productive. The tangible outcomes of Water quality
the process, in the form of the storylines and analyses, can be used
directly to inform decision making (Zurek and Henrichs 2007). Water regulation
In addition, the learning and communication that stem from the
scenario development are often seen as being equally valuable to
Erosion control
decision making (Wollenberg et al. 2000; MA 2005d).
The scenario building process has three primary benets.
First, participants of a scenarios exercise can gain a better Recreation & tourism
understanding of interactions, assumptions about the future,
and ecosystem service trade-offs. The scenarios process also
creates a platform to talk across interest groups, disciplines, and
philosophies. Finally, scenario development is a way of building
trust and cooperation and of resolving conicts among stake-
holder groups in relation to ecosystem services and the choice
of polices for sustaining services.

EXPL ORING FUTURE TRENDS IN ECOSYSTEM SER V IC ES 52


Understanding of interactions, that possibility. Such use of scenarios has been proposed as part
assumptions, and ecosystem trade-offs of the development of catchment management strategies under
Some of the direct outcomes of scenario building are a greater South Africas new water law (Rogers et al. 2000).
understanding of the linkages between policy options and the The mutual trust built around areas of common interest
impacts and dependencies on ecosystem services; the identi- contributes to the development of benecial partnerships. And
cation of beliefs and assumptions about how a policy or a public participation can generate important insights that con-
chosen development pathway may alter some or all ecosystem tribute to the design of policies better suited to serving those
services and in turn affect development goals; the identication concerned. Thus, a participatory process within the context of
of potential long-term consequences for ecosystem services of scenario planning can be used to challenge and inuence the
choices made in the near future; and the identication of fac- perceptions of both those in authority and those at grassroots.
tors important for a successful outcome of a decision. For example, in the Ban Mae Khong-Kha, Mae Chaem water-
shed in Thailand, competition and disputes for water were es-
Platform to talk across interest groups, calating as urban and industrial uses expanded in the lowlands
disciplines, and philosophies and deforestation for high input monoculture increased in the
Uncertainty about the future has an equalizing effect: no one uplands. Using scenarios, upstream and downstream indig-
discipline or sector can predict the future. It requires the collabo- enous communities, local authorities, and researchers came
ration of scientists, governments, and citizens to piece together together to discuss the future of the watershed. As a result, the
plausible stories about what might occur in the future. The result dispute was eased and local communities and administrators
is a process that can accommodate thoughtful, creative, and non- were empowered to plan for sustainable natural resource man-
threatening discussion about topics that are normally politically agement (Thongbai et al. 2006).
charged. Less powerful groups can be empowered through such
a process and more powerful groups can gain invaluable insight Scenario analysis is a exible approach that can help deci-
into how their practices and policies affect other groups. sion makers deal with uncertainties and assumptions about the
An example for this is the integrated ecosystem assessment future and to explore possible development pathways and long-
in the Salar de Atacama, Chile, which led to several roundtable term consequences of decisions taken today. Scenario planning
meetings to develop scenarios focused on the regions economic does not necessarily produce new knowledge, but aims to clar-
development. It was the rst occasion for representatives from ify and re-assess what is or is not known about the decisions,
nearby mining companies and leaders of indigenous communi- processes, and dynamics that will shape the future. It should be
ties to sit down to discuss their ideas and conicts. Francisca stressed that scenario planning does not describe the future as it
Greene, a local anthropologist who participated in the exercise, will actually take place, but instead highlights plausible futures,
said that this projects distinctive stamp has been the strong and particular assumptions and their consequences.
component of participation; participation not only in the sense As with other environmental assessment tools, scenario
of listening to and including the opinions of social stakeholders results are most useful when they frame the real issues at stake
interacting in the Salar, but also [through] the methodology and provide a credible set of results to help decision makers in
wherein the experiences and opinions that were developed were choosing policies, as described in the next chapter. By employing
shared between everyone; they were used to build up the body participatory methods, policy makers and other stakeholders can
of the project and as a tool with which to project the future. develop new, unexpected insights into ecosystem service trade-
(H. Blanco, personal communication, 2007) offs and risks implied in possible ways forward, which helps to
create more support for implementing policy
Building trust and cooperation aimed at adapting to changing conditions.
and resolving conicts
Scenarios can be used to air conicts or build consensus among
diverse stakeholders over what a desirable future might look like.
Managing natural resources often involves trade-offs between ACTION POINTS
different economic activities and values. Getting stakeholders l Consider how the main unknowns and assumptions
about the future may affect the outcomes of current
around the same table to discuss their visions of future land man- development strategies and policies.
agement or economic development helps build understanding
l Convene a group with the relevant scientic and local
of these trade-offs and agreement on appropriate policy. When expertise to systematically think about the future.
building and discussing scenarios, hidden values and assump-
l Consider how scenario planning might help the
tions are uncovered, highlighting potential shared values and group to identify future trade-offs among ecosystem
the root of conicts. Taking stakeholders away from the present services and their consequences for different
day to focus on possible futures facilitates discussion, allowing stakeholders.
participants to develop a greater understanding of each others
point of view. While there is no guarantee that increased mutual
respect will carry over to resolving current conicts, it increases

53 ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


The
4 DecisionC O N T I N U E S

Where the Mayor


and the community
explore the future
This report card is looking good. Congratulations,
said the Mayor. But our greatest concern is the future. We
want to know what will happen as the regional develop-
ment unfolds.
Unlike tomorrows weather, in this case it is not possible
to forecast, responded the Dean. But we can anticipate
what might happen if things go one way or another. We now
know the current state of our region, the main trends that
are transforming it, and the range of possible consequences
of our decisions. Now we need to turn this information into
plausible scenariosstories about what might happen by
2030 if. We cannot assume that the future will be like the
past, and such scenarios will yield insights into our assump-
tions and the limits of our understanding.
Its more or less like planning for the next election, the
Dean continued. You know what your approval rating is
today, what is working and what is not, and you know the
date of the next election. But you cannot know what your
opponents will do or what surprises may happen along the
way. We all wish we could predict the results of the election,
but we cant, so you need to imagine several plausible turn of
events and ask what if? By imagining alternative futures you will know how to react when the time comes.
The Mayor, and the whole Steering Committee, laughed. The Dean was one of the few people who could get
away with making such fun of him.
And for that we plan to organize a series of workshops with representatives of the affected communities, said
the Secretary of Environment. We hope all Steering Committee members will participate.
Visions of the future. That sounds good, thought the Mayor, imagining another attering headline.

We denitely dont want to go there, someone said after a prolonged silence. They had nished reading the
third scenario, which did not tell a attering story about the future.
Over the last three months, the Secretary of Environment and the technical team had conducted six workshops with dif-
ferent communities. Now they were presenting the results in the form of plausible stories about the future of Rio Grande.
They had formed three groups: one with coastal and lowlands communities, mostly shermen and community leaders from
the poorer neighborhoods; another with NGOs, municipal authorities, and business representatives from manufacturing,
tourism, and commerce; and a third one with highland farmers, timber producers, and national authorities.
All groups discussed the recent history of the region and voiced some similar concerns, for example: Lets not
forget that in the 1950s extreme poverty was unheard of in this region, and our forests were pristine. How did we go
from there to all the social and environmental problems of today? They also identied the expectations, problems,
and uncertainties for the future related to the biofuel industry and the national plan for biofuel production. Participants
engaged in lively conceptual discussions (We need more growth! Thats a necessary condition for improving the qual-

THE D EC ISION 54
The
4 Decision C O N T I N U E S

ity of life. No! What we need is better development. Growth does not always lead to better lives; often the reverse is
true!). They also explored more down-to-earth questions: What if the price of biofuels doubles? Who will stop land
concentration, food prices, and deforestation then? What will happen to water quality and coastal sheries?
The groups then identied the main forces likely to shape the future and how they might evolve over the coming
decades. With more cultivated land there will be more fertilizer and pesticide input; with less forest the water ows
will be affected; those are the drivers we must analyze, some said. But those things are driven by globalization. It
makes no sense to look at agricultural expansion without looking at international trade and new seed technologies,
countered others.

Let me tell you a brief history of the future, said the Professor to the Steering Committee as he began his pres-
entation. Remember that these stories are not predictions. They are just meant to help you think through the conse-
quences of different types of decisions. My team has explored three scenarios. First, how might our region look in 2030
if the country becomes a full player in the global economy and we adopt a largely reactive approach to environmental
issues? Second, what if the country adopts a more critical stance to globalization and focuses on community develop-
ment with a more proactive approach to environmental issues? Third, what if patterns of inequality and authoritarian-
ism prevail and environmental issues are addressed on a reactive basis?

First scenario: We become globalized....


In 2010 international trade negotiations nally made headway, and the country
gained better access to global markets. This external conditionthe big potential
for crop expansionalong with the existence of a growing port and relatively
low labor costs provided a boost to the biofuel industry. Farmers and multination-
als alike expected the demand for renewable energy to rise tremendously in the
future, and the rst biofuel renery started operating in 2009, with two more
completed by 2011.
The biofuel industry had a signicant economic impact: it created more than
3,000 new direct and indirect jobs and attracted other industries to the city, but it
also caused food prices to increase as more items had to be imported from other
regions. In 2013 the port was expanded and a free trade zone was introduced in
the harbor. Encouraged by these developments, a sh processing plant opened in
2014, and larger vessels operating in the open seas started unloading their catches
for processing in Rio Grande. In 2017, the rst dead zone was detected in the
estuary as high quantities of nutrients from the upstream crop expansion owed
down the river, and despite a campaign to save the mangroves the damage was
already irreparable, with climate change helping to nish them off. Regional GDP
grew and poverty dropped, although inequality remained high. Population almost
doubled between 2000 and 2025.
With all this economic progress, the city offered more services, although previ-
ously rare social problems, such as violent crime, began to multiply along with the
population. Also, by the year 2025 tourism had been reduced to a trickle as once
attractive coastal and forest areas were degraded. Water quantity and quality be-
came the single most serious problem for the city administration as too much nitro-
gen and pesticides were washed down the river, and waste water from the growing
industries polluted the lower river and coastal areas. Most small farmers were now
working in the city industry or had gone elsewhere as the competition for land had grown. As the global and regional
climate changed, the region saw an increase in precipitation, which coupled with land use change upstream resulted
in frequent ooding and landslides. The government spent large amounts building ood control infrastructure. By
2030, Rio Grande looked very much like a growing middle-income industrial city.

55 E C OS Y S T E M SE R V I CE S : A G U I D E F O R D E C I SI O N MA K ERS
Second scenario: Communities rst.
After the natural disasters in 2006 many citizens concluded that the problem was
not just climate change and increased precipitation, but also the way land was used
in the watershed, in particular the type of agriculture and the shrinking forest cover.
These changes were connected to consumption in the cityfor instance, the de-
mand for meat had risen, leading to an expansion of chicken, cattle, and hog farms
around the city, which in turn had driven up demand for feed maize cultivated
by upstream farmers. This increased demand together with strong external mar-
kets lead to an expansion of the area grown under maize. Soil erosion, including
landslides, became a signicant problem. Research and extension programs were
launched to test and implement improved land management methods. These ex-
periences focused on the integrated management and monitoring of all ecosystem
services produced in the area. Also, new incentive mechanisms were explored for
farmers to change their land management, such as new income possibilities from
eco- and agri-tourism or payments for improved water quantity and quality.
After much research and public debate, the Regional Sustainable Biofuel Plan
was turned down in 2011. New funding from international and national sources
allowed massive implementation of ecosystem friendly management practices,
including a more systematic monitoring of the environment, soil erosion control
measures, organic farming, and integrated pest management, which by 2020
were widespread practices. Overall regional growth was slow but steady; pov-
erty, measured as income per head, was reduced only slowly as new income op-
portunities grew from tourism and small industrial developments. But inequality
diminished and environmental quality improved signicantly, reected in a bet-
ter quality of life, especially for the poor. By 2030, the region was a quilt, where
agriculture, forestry, artisanal shing, and undisturbed natural areas coexisted with a medium-sized city whose income
came from a diversied base of services, agriculture, and small industry.

The Professor went on to describe the third scenario, a story of social and environmental distress that some thought
was unduly catastrophic, and others very realistic.

Unexpectedly, the scenarios attracted a lot of media attention, and things got tricky in the Steering Committee. NGOs
used the negative scenario to warn what might happen if the Regional Sustainable Biofuel Plan was implemented. The
business sectors felt this was a betrayal to the process and threatened to withdraw, and the Professor worried about the way
in which the scenarios were being interpreted. The Secretary of Environment realized she had made a big mistake by not
establishing as a rule in the Committee that no information would be made public until the reports had been approved.
The Mayor was not happy he did not like it when others had the upper hand. Yet, he thought the process had
gone very well and that Steering Committee members were too engaged to allow it to founder now. He saw the crisis
as an opportunity to show himself as a statesman, reconciling opposed interests for the common good.
He got the NGOs, business leaders, Bishop, and Dean to hold a joint press conference. As you have seen from the
news these last days, we face a transcendent decision for our city. All of us at this table are concerned with our com-
mon future.
The conference was a success, and now even the national press was waiting for the reports. Moreover, the observer
from the Ministry of Natural Resources had been reporting back to the capital and was now suggesting a stronger involve-
ment of the national government and the neighboring municipalities. We must involve the other jurisdictions. They will be
making decisions directly relevant to you. I can facilitate an approach to them, he had told the Mayor in private.
At the next Steering Committee meeting all agreed they would not reveal any substantive information until the
reports were approved, and the process completed without further problems.

THE DECISION 56
C H A P T E R

5
Incorporate ecosystem service risks and
opportunities into development strategies...................................58

Review the legal framework and policy options


for sustaining ecosystem services ...................................................59 Lead Author
Frances Irwin
Choose policies to sustain ecosystem services .............................. 60
Contributing Author
Adopt a learning approach to implementing policies................. 66 Janet Ranganathan

PHOTOS BY COPYRIGHT 2 0 0 7 W R I / E M BA R Q A N D I S TO C K P H OTO. C O M / I A N W I L S O N


Choosing Policies to
Sustain Ecosystem Services

A
chieving development goalswhether reducing Can the strategy be revised to reduce or
poverty or building an agricultural export indus- manage its impacts on ecosystem services?
trydepends on and affects the health of ecosystem Many countries such as Thailand have converted many of their
services. This chapter outlines four steps for choos- mangroves to shrimp farms in recent years to meet export de-
ing and implementing policies to sustain the mand, as described in chapter 1. The loss of mangroves and the
ecosystem services that underlie development: spawning grounds they provide for sh, combined with pollu-
Use the ndings from the assessment of ecosystem services tion from shrimp farms, degrade local capture sheries and the
(chapter 3) and learnings from the scenarios (chapter 4) to capacity of mangroves to protect against storms. Impacts such as
revise a development strategy by taking ecosystem service these can have disproportionate effects on some parts of society,
risks and opportunities into account; particularly the poor living in coastal communities. To address
Review the range of policy options available to inuence these impacts, aquaculture strategies can be revised to be more
the drivers of change in ecosystem services; sustainable through the use of certication programs. Govern-
Choose policies based on their effectiveness in inuencing ment and large retailers can help drive certication by adopting
the drivers of ecosystem change; and sustainable procurement policies. For example, Wal-Mart, a
Adopt a learning approach to implementing policies. major purchaser of shrimp from Thailand, plans to only pur-
chase shrimp from farms certied under standards drawn up by
the Global Aquaculture Alliance (Hudson and Watcharasakwet
INCORPORATE ECOSYSTEM 2007; Phillips and Subasinghe 2006).
SERVICE RISKS AND OPPORTUNITIES The Rio Grande scenarios illustrate that if farmers con-
INTO DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES vert large amounts of land now forested to growing crops for
A development goal and initial assumptions about a strategy biofuel, the watersheds ability to control oodwaters and lter
to achieve it steer the early stages of decision making. In the drinking water would be further reduced. Runoff of fertilizer
Rio Grande story, a national policy to encourage production of and pesticides after storms would likely damage water quality.
biofuels triggers a proposal to build a biofuel plant in the city. Thus further land conversion would likely require that the city
At the same time, the mayor rates the need to stop ooding and substitute expensive physical structures for the waste treat-
supply clean water as high priorities in building a livable city. ment service previously supplied by ecosystems. Rio Grande
Before choosing policies, a decision maker such as the Mayor could work with partners to revise the approach to biofuels by
needs to take stock of what he has learned during earlier phases of introducing a Regional Sustainable Biofuel Plan to incorporate
the decision process by taking an Ecosystem Services Approach. measures such as protecting wetlands and requiring best man-
The risks and opportunities that stem from ecosystem service agement practices that avoid or reduce runoff from pesticides.
impacts and dependencies and insights from scenarios will both
help answer the following questions Can the strategy be revised to reduce its
useful in framing the revision. dependence on ecosystem services by using
them more efciently?
Increasing efciency can often be a part of strategies that de-
KEY LEARNINGS pend on provisioning ecosystem services. For example, produc-
Development strategies can incorporate risks and tion techniques may be improved to use all parts of a provi-
opportunities to help maintain ecosystem services. sioning service such as timber previously wasted but now used
to make mulch or composite board, or as a source of energy in
wood-red boilers. However, if increased efciency is associated
with an increase in production it will not reduce dependency.
The national biofuels goal focused on increasing biofuels
production in the Rio Grande story. It did not address ecosys-

CHOO S ING P OL ICI ES TO S US TA IN E C OS YS TE M S E R VICE S 58


tem services. Preparation of the Regional Sustainable Biofuel
Plan offers a chance to take advantage of the opportunities to

ISTOCKPHOTO. COM/MILOS PERIC


reduce the strategys dependence on the provisioning services
of freshwater and land. Alternative technologies for biofuel
production can minimize water quality problems and cropland
expansion at the expense of food production. For example,
emerging cellulosic technology allows for the joint production
of food and fuel with the same crop by using previously unused
bers for fuel.
Forests provide the Panama Canal with erosion control and water
regulation services, helping to keep the waterway open for business.
Can the strategy be revised to increase
the supply of ecosystem services that it
depends on or affects? REVIEW THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK
Opportunities to increase the supply of ecosystem services AND POLICY OPTIONS FOR SUSTAINING
often involve creating economic or other incentives for those ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
in a position to restore, maintain, or enhance services. This Growing experience demonstrates how policies focused on
may mean paying people to sustain ecosystem services (such ecosystem services can become an integral part of development
as paying farmers to reduce nutrient runoff into waterways) or strategies. After briey reviewing the important role of the ex-
investing in actions that restore ecosystem services. isting legal framework, this section outlines the range of policy
Investing in ecosystem restoration is the approach be- options for sustaining ecosystem services.
ing taken in Panama. Navigation of the Panama Canal saves
weeks and millions of dollars in shipping, but it depends on a Legal framework
steady supply of water and a clear shipping channel. Defores- A governments laws provide the framework for adopting and
tation of lands surrounding the canal threatens its operations applying policies to sustain ecosystem services. They may be
by increasing erosion rates, causing the canal to ll with silt, national or sub-national laws that govern ownership, taxation,
and disturbing natural runoff rates, making water levels in and use of land and natural resources. In some cases, interna-
the canal more erratic. ForestRe, a specialist insurance entity, tional agreements establish basic principles. National constitu-
realized that the cost of restoring forests around the canal was tions often guarantee the rights of citizens to obtain informa-
less than the costs that major shipping and insurance com- tion and to take part in decision making. Local communities
panies faced in the form of higher premiums and the risk of can use these rights to participate in and hold government
paying claims if the canal had to be closed. The company has agencies accountable for decisions affecting ecosystem services.
convinced insurance providers and companies that rely on the Laws governing who owns and who can use land and other
canal to nance reforestation to increase erosion control and resources are particularly important for ecosystem services. If the
water regulation services. law is not clear about who has accessfor instance, to a forest
Reformulating a strategy will often lead to rethinking who and its productsthe law may need to be amended before poli-
is included in the process of selecting policies. In New Yorks cy to safeguard ecosystem services can be put in place. If farmers
decision to continue to rely on watershed ltration rather are to be paid for maintaining woodland, their legal access to
than build a treatment plant, a Coalition of Watershed Towns the land needs to be clear. This is one reason some countries
emerged to provide a voice for 30 towns west of the Hudson have revised their laws to provide a clearer role for local com-
River. The towns feared that this strategy would result in munities in managing forests and sheries (WRI et al. 2005:93).
stiing economic development, reducing property values, and The legal framework often mandates how ecosystem
eroding the local tax base (Finnegan 1997; Schneeweiss 1997). services may be used and how human activitiesthe drivers
Townspeople became key participants along with environ- of changethat affect services are managed. In some cases,
mental organizations and government agencies in negotiating particular uses of a resource may be subsidized to encourage,
the next stage of policy, leading to compensation for land use say, production of a crop like corn or cotton. In a coastal area,
restrictions to protect the citys water supply.
Once a strategy has been revised to take into account ecosys-
tem service risks and opportunities identied in the assessment
and scenarios, the decision maker is ready to look at specic
policy options to sustain ecosystem services.

59 ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


construction may be limited but recreation encouraged by are more likely to be effective when accompanied by strong
zoning the land for that use. Land may also be designated as a education policies, economic and nancial incentives that
government-owned forest, an agricultural reserve, or a pro- align behavior with laws, indicators of performance and
tected area for wildlife and biodiversity. transparency, clear management standards, and investment
Laws also determine how particular activities may be carried in environmental and natural resource management (Irwin
out. They may require an environmental impact assessment and Ranganathan 2007). These are among the policy options
before a project can be undertaken. They may control how a discussed in the next section.
resource such as a forest or water can be used. They often set
overall goals and establish a licensing or permitting program to Policy options
achieve them. South Africas National Water Act provides an As discussed in chapter 1,
example of how laws may be written to recognize the im- ecosystem services come KEY LEARNINGS
portance of sustaining ecosystem services. It sets out guiding into play in any of a wide Policies can spur investment
in ecosystem services.
principles of sustainability and equity in the protection, use, range of policy processes. A
development, conservation, management, and control of water decision maker may be de-
resources. For any signicant water source the law establishes vising a tax policy, a poverty
both a human-needs reserve for the essential needs of indi- reduction or water management plan, incentives
viduals (drinking water, food preparation, and hygiene) and for adopting new energy technology, or a set of
an ecological reserve to protect aquatic ecosystems, which the indicators for the economy. Such instances need to include
government is required to determine. It may issue water use policies addressing ecosystem services. A growing list of policies
licenses for periods of up to 40 years (Department of Water that show promise of sustaining ecosystem services has emerged
Affairs and Forestry 2007). (see Table 5.1). As experience increases, the list can be updated
The capacity to enforce laws and avoid corruption is a through a process that allows users to share their learnings. The
crucial element in making the legal structure effective. Laws policies fall into four categories, corresponding to the entry
points introduced in chapter 1: national and sub-national
policies, economic and scal incentives, sector policies, and
governance. Some options can be considered in more than one
category. For example, easements can be viewed both as an
economic incentive and as a sector policy.

CHOOSE POLICIES TO SUSTAIN


ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
After analyzing existing legal frameworks and reviewing the
range of policy options, a decision maker is ready to select the
most effective mix of policies for carrying out a development
strategy. This section presents six criteria to consider when
choosing policies (see Table 5.2). It then illustrates how Rio
Grande might select the policies to address the ecosystem driver
of land conversion.
With these design criteria in mind, a decision maker can
select the policy options in Table 5.1 that will most effectively
sustain the capacity of ecosystem services to meet the needs of
people and in doing so strengthen the development strategy.
In Rio Grande, the Secretary of Environment and her
staff are likely to focus on approaches to limit the risks of
ooding and pollution and to take advantage of opportunities
to increase the supply of water ltration services from forests
G E T T Y I MAG E S

The rule of law plays an essential role in sustaining ecosystem services.

CH OOS IN G P OL I CIE S T O SU S TAIN E COS YS T E M S E R VIC E S 60


Table 5.1 Policy Options for Sustaining Ecosystem Services1
Potential value
for sustaining Challenges in design and
Policy Option Examples of experience
ecosystem implementation
services
National and sub-national policies
Mainstream ecosystem Addresses indirect driv- Overcoming separate agency man- Tanzanias 2005 National Strategy for Growth and Reduction
services into economic and ers of ecosystem change dates, integrating different skills of Poverty explicitly recognizes many of the drivers of ecosys-
development planning over the longer term and perspectives, aligning with tem service degradation as impediments to poverty reduction.
by including ecosystem other policies such as nancial and The strategy sets goals to address these drivers, establishes a
services in poverty reduc- economic incentives set of poverty-environment indicators, and includes 15 envi-
tion strategies, national ronmental targets (Assey et al. 2007).
economic and develop-
ment plans, or country
assistance strategies

Include investments in Makes the crucial Improving ability to value and UK Treasury drew on the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
ecosystem services in link between policies integrate ecosystem services in in preparing its Comprehensive Spending Review of govern-
government budgeting focused on ecosystem cost-benet analysis and identify- ment funding. Notes that Assessment is relevant to achieving
services and providing ing specic investments to sustain sustainable growth, employment, security and equity, and
funds to carry them out them that Treasury will aim to release resources to meet environ-
mental challenges (UK House of Commons Environmental
Audit Committee 2007).

Establish protected areas Helps protect eco- Incorporating goal of sustaining In 1986, St. Lucia designated marine reserves with the involve-
systems and their ecosystem services into site selec- ment of local people and businesses, leading to regeneration
associated services from tion, linking biodiversity conserva- of mangrove forests (WRI et al. 2000:176-77).
drivers of over exploita- tion and sustaining ecosystem
In 1993, Austria established 20-year contracts with all forest
tion and conversion service goals
owners requiring them to protect the land. Financial com-
Including local communities, taking a pensation was offered to owners who lost income (Hackl and
landscape approach that recognizes Rohrich 2001).
drivers of change outside the pro-
tected area, and ensuring nancial
sustainability

Economic and scal incentives


Use tax deductions Provides economic Avoiding equity problems or pro- U.S. law gives landowners tax deductions for donating
and credits to encourage incentive to manage tecting one service at the expense conservation easements, which restrict use of the property to
investment in and purchase ecosystems in ways that of others protect associated resources (House 2006).
of ecosystem services sustain services

Establish fees for use of Reduces waste of Avoiding equity issues, where In Colombia, Cauca Valley water associations volun-
resources or services resource those with lower incomes are less tarily agreed to increase user fees paid to the local utility
able to pay and balancing number in exchange for improved watershed management. The
of users associations aim to improve stream ow for the benet of
agricultural producers (FAO 2002).

Use taxes or other public Creates economic Maintaining one service at the The UK Nitrate Sensitive Areas (NSA) Scheme uses direct
funds to pay for the main- incentive to supply expense of others, avoiding government payments to compensate farmers for adopting
tenance of regulating and services that do not creating equity issues such as loss management practices that reduced leaching of nitrates into
cultural services normally have a market of harvest rights or ineligibility groundwater (IUCN 2007).
value because of lack of tenure
A Costa Rican fund mainly from fuel tax revenues pays forest
Depending on still emerging owners for watershed protection (Perrot-Matre and Davis
market infrastructure such as 2001).
quantication, verication, and
Belize charges foreign tourists a conservation fee, which
monitoring tools
funds a trust dedicated to the sustainable management and
Informing public about use of conservation of protected areas (Conservation Finance Alli-
funds to provide accountability ance 2003).

Reduce perverse subsidies Removes incentive for Overcoming vested interests in main- As a result of eutrophication of waterways and threats to
intensive production taining subsidies, creating mecha- drinking water supply, many Asian countries have reduced
of provisioning services nisms to transfer reduction in subsi- fertilizer subsidies, including Pakistan (from $178 million to
at expense of other dies to payments for maintenance of $2 million per year), Bangladesh ($56 million to $0), and the
services regulating and cultural services Philippines ($48 million to $0) (Myers 1998).

1
Brianna Peterson provided many of the examples of experience included in this table.

61 ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


Table 5.1 Policy Options for Sustaining Ecosystem Services (continued)
Potential value
for sustaining Challenges in design and
Policy Option Examples of experience
ecosystem implementation
services
Economic and scal incentives (continued)
Set limits and establish Achieves more cost-ef- Ensuring limit is stringent enough to In 1980, New Jersey established Tradable Pinelands Devel-
trading systems for use fective improvements in provide an incentive to participate opment Credits to limit development in environmentally
of ecosystems and their ecosystem services than sensitive areas and allow prospective developers to trade
Allocating permits or credits in
services conventional regulatory for development rights on available land (Landell-Miles and
cases of unclear property rights
approaches Porras 2002).
Keeping transaction costs manage-
In 1999, Australia established a Water Transpiration Credits
able, especially for non-point sources
Scheme, to reduce river salinity (Brand 2005).
Under its National Water Initiative, Australia sets limits on wa-
ter use in the Murray Darling Basin and, as of January 2007,
the basin states are able to buy and sell permanent water
entitlements (Parliament of Australia 2006).

Fund valuation of Increases societal Dealing with techniques for valu- A study found Canadas Mackenzie Watersheds 17 ecosystem
ecosystem services and awareness of the value ing ecosystem services that are still services worth nearly $450 billion undisturbed, offering new
research into improving of ecosystem services in their infancy perspective of economic benets and costs of proposed gas
valuation methods and strengthens cost- pipeline (Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society 2007).
Discrediting ecosystem service ap-
benet analysis for
proach by overestimating values A study found that on a single Costa Rican farm natural
public decisions
pollination by insects increased coffee yields 20 percent on
plots that lay within a kilometer of natural forest, service
worth approximately $60,000 (Rickets et al. 2004).

Use procurement policies to Creates incentives for Avoiding high transaction costs of UK Government timber procurement policy stipulates timber
focus demand on products suppliers to adopt demonstrating responsible behavior must come from legal and sustainable sources (CPET 2007).
and services that conserve approaches that are
Implementing cost- effective moni-
ecosystem services ecosystem friendly
toring and verication systems

Support wetland banking Provides way of main- Ensuring that substituted wetlands Wetland banking schemes in California allow developers
schemes taining overall services are of equal value to those destroyed who destroy wetlands to offset the environmental damage
provided by wetlands by paying to protect a sensitive wetland in another location
Ensuring equity for local popula-
by requiring substitu- (Ofce of Policy, Economics, and Innovation and Ofce of
tions who lose services
tion by developers Water 2005).

Sector policies
Include ecosystem Goes beyond addressing Dealing with limited experience South Africas Working for Water Program combines
services in sector impacts of economic of public sector using Ecosystem social development goals of job creation and poverty
policies and strategic development to look at Services Approach in decision relief, and agricultural goals of increasing productivity of
environmental dependence on services processes and limited information cleared lands, as well as ecosystem rehabilitation goals
assessments on ecosystem services of eradicating alien species and restoring stream flows
Broadens scale of analysis
(Department of Water Affairs and Forestry 2007).

Set targets to encourage Provides incentive to Using land to produce renewable Under the UK Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation, transport
use of renewable energy replace fossil fuels with energy sources such as biofuels fuel suppliers must ensure a proportion of their fuel sales is
renewable sources can lead to soil erosion and degra- from renewable sources, as of 2008 (Commons 2007).
dation of ecosystem services such
as water quality

Require ecosystem Creates incentives for Dening and enforcing best prac- Cameroons 1996 Forest Code calls for all commercial logging
management best managing ecosystems tice standards to be regulated under designated forest concessions. This
practices in granting in ways that sustain legislation establishes rules for concession allocation, local
licenses or concessions ecosystem services distribution of forest revenues, as well as requirements for
submitting and gaining approval for forest management plans
(WRI 2007).

Use zoning or easements Provides way to main- Needing legal framework in place Some ood plains are zoned for uses such as recreation or
to keep land available for tain priority ecosystem and fair political process to apply agriculture rather than housing or commerce.
priority ecosystem services services zoning
Easements can be used to keep land available for cultural and
regulating ecosystem services.

C HOOSIN G POLIC IES TO SU STA IN EC OSYSTE M S ER VICES 62


Table 5.1 Policy Options for Sustaining Ecosystem Services (continued)
Potential value
for sustaining Challenges in design and
Policy Option Examples of experience
ecosystem implementation
services
Sector policies (continued)
Use physical structures or Provides a substitute for Building structures such as sea Seattles street edge projects mimic natural ecosystems,
technology to substitute degraded ecosystem walls to substitute for ecosystem reducing storm water runoff by 99 percent. Roof gardens also
for ecosystem services services that may mimic services such as coastal protec- reduce runoff (Seattle Public Utilities 2007).
natural design tion often simply shifts the
Dikes and levees substitute for coastal protection.
problem, distributing costs and
benets unfairly, fostering false Sea walls avoid coastal erosion.
condence, and providing only a
single benet rather than multiple
benets of ecosystem service

Use regulating ecosystem Usually provides co- Procuring time and funds for New York City protected its watershed instead of building a
services such as natural benets such as carbon negotiations and continued ltration plant (US EPA 2007b).
hazard protection or water storage and recreation maintenance
Reforestation and conservation of mangroves in coastal areas
ltration instead of built
Dealing with limited knowledge affected by the 2004 tsunami can help prevent future dam-
structures
about ecosystem service ows, es- age (UNEP-WCMC 2006).
pecially for regulating and cultural
ecosystem services

Establish certication Provides those growing Ensuring development of transpar- U.S. Department of Agriculture provides farms with organic
schemes that encourage or harvesting timber, ent, scientically valid standards certication (USDA 2006).
best management practices sh, or crops a way and their adoption
Forest Stewardship Council provides certication for sustain-
to learn about best
able timber harvesting practices (US FSC 2006).
management practices Paying transaction costs that may
and to demonstrate use limit participation In the Pacic U.S. states, Salmon-safe certies farms and ur-
of the practices ban land that practice sh-friendly management (IUCN 2007).
Informing consumers

Introduce education or Provides knowledge Providing economic incentives for U.S. National Conservation Buffer Initiative educates farmers
extension programs on to those maintaining participation to control pollution by using lter strips and other measures
good practices ecosystem services such as wind barriers (USDA NRCS 2007).

Develop and encourage Reduces degradation of Evaluating potential negative Drip irrigation in Israel allows for more efcient use of water
use of products and ecosystem services by trade-off, such as organic agricul- for agriculture (Sandler 2005).
methods that reduce avoiding harmful sub- ture potentially requiring use of
Rainwater harvesting practices increase the supply of drinking
dependence and impact stances or using services more land, which could lead to
water in parts of India (CSE India 2004).
on ecosystem services more efciently further habitat conversion.
Organic agriculture reduces negative impacts on soil and
water by avoiding agrochemicals.

Governance
Clarify or strengthen Ensures involvement of Identifying who represents the Vietnams 1994 Land Law allows organizations, households,
local community rights stakeholders who may community, clarifying the role of and individuals to manage forests for long-term purposes.
to use and manage depend on ecosystem traditional authorities, ensuring Some one million families living in upland areas have man-
ecosystem services services for their im- that women and the poor are aged ve million hectares of forest. This decentralization
mediate livelihood and included has resulted in an increase in protected forests as well as an
well-being increase in the benets the people gain from the forests
services (FAO 2000).

Develop and use private Provides information Obtaining funding to develop eco- The European Union makes indicators on natural resource
and public sector indicators about the state of system indicators and continued management publicly available online (Eurostat 2006).
for ecosystem services ecosystem services and funding to disseminate and use
Silicon Valley Environmental Partnership provides indicators
shows where practices data on regular basis
and tracks local trends to foster more informed decision mak-
need to be changed
ing (Silicon Valley Environmental Partnership 2007).
Global Reporting Initiative standards for corporate sustainabil-
ity reports require companies to report on water and natural
resource use (GRI 2007).

63 ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


Table 5.1 Policy Options for Sustaining Ecosystem Services (continued)
Potential value
for sustaining Challenges in design and
Policy Option Examples of experience
ecosystem implementation
services
Governance (continued)
Establish processes to Shifts focus to boundar- Requiring transaction costs In Samoa, 40 local communities work with national agencies
work across levels of ies of ecosystem services and time for building partner- to co-manage sheries. National government provides legal
government, from local rather than boundaries ships authority, research, market information, credit, and transport.
to national of government jurisdic- Local communities have clear rights and authority to manage
tions, uses complemen- local shery under a management plan (WRI et al. 2005:93).
tary authorities, skills,
and resources of differ-
ent levels of government

Ensure public access Allows the public to Requiring investment in build- Evaluation of Brazilian ecological tax system recommends
to information and hold public and private ing the capacity of individuals, making amounts transferred public so local governments can
participation actors accountable for civil society, and government be held accountable for their use (WWF 2003).
their actions in relation to produce, analyze, dis-
to ecosystem services seminate, and use information
and to engage effectively in
decision making

Except where noted, examples adapted from MA 2005d:11-21.

and wetlands, as well as food for the citys growing population


Table 5.2 Design Criteria for Selecting Policies
(see close of chapter 3). The staff learned from the process of
Criteria Factors to consider developing the scenarios that policies to address the driver of
Political viability Does the decision maker have the political land conversion are likely to be important. To foster discussion
capital to undertake a major initiative? Does of options that address land conversion, the staff goes through
the public understand the issue and support Table 5.1 and prepares a list of potential policies and a
action to address it? What is the range of
interests that would be affected? description of how they might apply in Rio Grande (see
Table 5.3).
Legal authority Is the legal framework for adopting and car- As they consider the options, the Secretarys staff employs the
rying out the policy in place? If so, does the
decision maker have authority or would it be policy design criteria to consider further how each of these policies
necessary to build a partnership with another might help achieve Rio Grandes development goals. For example,
government body that has authority? they examine how establishing protected areas might ensure that
Economic viability Is the policy cost-effective for society as a lands particularly valuable for water ltration and ood protection
whole? For those who must change their are not converted to housing, commercial development, or row
behavior? crops that increase runoff (see Table 5.4).
Effectiveness Does the policy force action that is capable In practice, any strategy for sustaining ecosystem services is
of modifying the direct and indirect drivers of likely to require a mix of policies. In the case of Rio Grande,
ecosystem change? Is it possible to set an in- the Regional Sustainable Biofuel Plan involving the national
centive such as a tax credit at the appropriate
level to change behavior? Can the results of government and the surrounding municipalities might decide
the policy be measured and used for account- to designate some wetlands as protected areas and set up a
ability and to change course as appropriate? program to pay farmers not to plant row crops on land valuable
Equity Is the outcome fair to all stakeholders? If for water ltration.
there are losers under the policy, how will Any decision maker is likely to need to obtain information
they be compensated? about the value of key ecosystem services and to raise public
Institutional Is adequate capacity and funding in govern- awareness among colleagues and the public on the importance
capacity ment and other participating groups available of ecosystem services. In the story, The Rio Grande Report serves
to implement the policy? If the policy requires
working across scales and/or sectors, is there
a mechanism to do so, or can one be created?

Source: Adapted from MA 2005b; U.S. Congress


Ofce of Technology Assessment 1995.

C HOOSIN G POLIC IES TO SU STA IN EC OSYSTE M S ER VICES 64


Table 5.3 Policies to Reduce Land Conversion in Rio Grande Watershed
Policy option Application to Rio Grande
National and sub-national policies
Mainstream ecosystem Are there goals for maintaining areas of wetlands and forests in any existing national or regional development
services into development plans? Is there a map showing the location of wetlands and forests? Might city use leverage of issuing biofuel ren-
planning ery license to persuade national government to support development of a sustainable biofuels plan that incorpo-
rates investment in conserving wetlands and forests?

Include investments in Provide funding for national, provincial, and city agencies to monitor ecosystem services and play active role in
ecosystem services in partnering to develop and apply policies to sustain services.
government budget

Establish protected areas Establish protected areas for a few key coastal wetlands where mayor has authority (may be too expensive for land
already owned by developers). Work with province to encourage non-governmental conservancy group to purchase
key wetlands in upper watershed for natural area. Explore with government forest agency potential for establishing
protected area in key forest tracts.

Economic and scal incentives


Use taxes or other public Allocate a percentage of city tax funds to go to landowners of coastal wetlands. Provide payments to watershed landowners
funds to pay for the and encourage other jurisdictions, perhaps province, to do so. Need to decide who pays tax: those who benet from clean
maintenance of regulating water and ood protection or those whose actions degrade the service. Taxing biofuel sales or exports is one possibility.
and cultural services

Reduce perverse subsidies Both food and biofuel now subsidized. Work with national government to limit biofuel subsidies to biofuel technol-
ogy less damaging to ecosystem services and shift food subsidies to ood protection and water quality.

Set limits and establish Suitable for managing pollutants such as nitrogen or phosphorus from fertilizer use or waste treatment. Requires
trading systems capacity to quantify and monitor and legislative framework for caps.

Fund valuation of ecosystem Explore government funding of local university to determine economic value of ecosystem services provided by
services and research into wetlands and forest in watershed.
improving valuation methods

Use procurement policies to Check to see if program is available to certify sustainable agriculture and/or biofuel production. If not, could work
focus demand on products with NGOs and university to take lead in developing national or regional approach. City could promote use by
and services that conserve adopting its own procurement policy.
ecosystem services

Sector policies
Include ecosystem services Recommend national or provincial government do strategic environmental assessment for agricultural sectors shift
in sector policies, plans, to biofuel cultivation.
strategic environmental
assessments

Require ecosystem Use licensing of biofuel renery to leverage best management practices in the watershed and to raise funds to help
management best practices pay cost.
in granting permits or
concessions

Use zoning or easements Likely to be a key policy tool. Less expensive than purchasing wetlands. Could be used to keep riverbanks and key
to keep land available for wetland areas out of crop production. Also, consider zoning of some coastal wetlands. Will need to work with
priority ecosystem services watershed and neighboring towns.

Use physical structures or Look at amount and sources of funding for water treatment plant. Consider how cost/benet analysis compares
technology as substitute for with investments in ecosystems to provide similar services.
human physical structures

Develop and encourage use Fund research on biofuel cellulosic technology to reduce competition of crops for fuel versus food. Will private
of products and methods companies or the state fund? Combine with incentive or legal requirement to get widespread adoption of precision
that reduce dependence and and no-till agricultural practices for food and biofuel crops, perhaps through watershed or national plan.
impact on services

Governance
Develop and use private and Develop public indicators of wetland and forest conversion. Work with province or national agencies to include
public sector indicators for indicators in biannual report on state of ecosystem services. Otherwise start with pilot for city and watershed.
ecosystem services Encourage NGOs to use as basis for public education campaign.

Establish processes to work Set up working group with other agencies. Collaborate with water agency to map wetlands and with agricultural
across levels of government, agency to develop more efcient technology for water and fertilizer use.
from local to national

65 ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


Table 5.4 Design Criteria for Proposed Policy Option: Establish Protected Areas

Design criteria Application to Rio Grande


Political viability Some real estate developers will oppose setting up protected areas in Rio Grande and some farmers are likely to object to
protecting parts of the watershed. Would need to work with communities who need clean water and ood protection,
ecotourism groups who would benet from birds, sh, and wetlands aesthetics and to ensure availability of land for hous-
ing for shing community and for tourists.

Legal authority Would need to investigate who has authority to designate protected wetlands. Do cities have authority within their bound-
aries? How about the province or national ministries?

Economic viability Could be too expensive to purchase much of the remaining local wetlands unless national government or a private group
helps. Recent storm damage may help persuade some people in the city of the economic importance of protecting these
areas, but other land needs to be available to substitute.

Effectiveness Would probably sustain ecosystem services of ood protection and water quality as well as cultural services. Need to con-
sider balance between purchasing the most important wetlands and perhaps paying farmers and shers to maintain other
areas for water ltration and natural hazard protection.

Equity How would farmers, shers, real estate industry, and others be affected by designating wetlands? Farmers would lose ability
to convert some land to biofuel crops. Real estate investors would lose some land for hotels. Both farmers and investors
might be encourged to use wetlands as a base in building ecotourism. Fishing community should benet as coastal
wetlands provide nursery for sh.

Institutional capacity Would need to build capacity to map and designate wetlands in private or public institutions and also to monitor. Might
national resource agency fund university to train shing community to monitor use of protected wetlands?

this purpose. If political capital is limited, the educational Box 5.1 Taking a Broad, Sustained Approach: Vittels Experience
process may take much longer and may entail building
institutional capacity and funding research. Non-governmental Vittel, located in France, is one of the worlds best selling brands of
groups can play a role convincing the public that the bottled water. In the early 1980s, the company was facing nitrate
degradation poses a threat. In-depth attention to all the criteria contamination in the source of its water. Buying the land was not an
option because the law did not allow purchase of agricultural land for
for selecting a policy can lead to success even when the overall non-agricultural purposes. Buying land would also have caused social
political situation is unfavorable (see Box 5.1). protests. Instead, the company performed detailed analyses of the
As the Rio Grande story illustrates, political bargaining regions farming practices, modeling and testing the link between the
plays a crucial role in making it possible to adopt development ecosystem service of water ltration and management practices over
four years.
policies that address the major drivers of ecosystem change
It worked closely with each farmer to negotiate payments for specic
such as migration, pollution, land conversion, and technology.
changes in management practices, including substituting raising hay
Adoption of new policies often becomes possible after a crisis and alfalfa instead of maize for animal feed, reducing the number
as political leaders become convinced and the public becomes of cattle per acre, giving up agrochemicals, and modernizing farm
more aware of the need for action in a time of rapid ecosystem buildings. Payments were linked to new farm investment and the cost
of adopting the practices. A group led by a champion of the farmers
change. In the Rio Grande story, circumstances after the ood
organized and represented them in negotiations with the company.
appear right for ambitious policy change, as the mayor provides
An analysis of the corporate-led program concluded that it was success-
the political leadership. ful because it took a broad, long-term approach. It addressed political,
social, economic, legal, and communication issues in an integrated way.
The analysis notes that government agencies have been less effective
ADOPT A LEARNING APPROACH in addressing similar challenges because specialists in livestock, plants,
and other areas usually offer short-term, narrow technical approaches
TO IMPLEMENTING POLICIES (Perrot-Matre 2006).
While experience is growing, there is still much to discover
about implementing policies aimed at sustaining ecosystem
services. Therefore, taking a learning approach is essential,
especially as the policy context differs from place to place.
An evaluation of a project in the Virilla watershed in Costa KEY LEARNINGS
A learning approach is
Rica, for example, found payments to farmers were reducing essential in implementing
land degradation and improving water quality. They were also policies.
providing landowners with opportunities to start ecotourism
ventures. However, the project was not reducing poverty in
poorer households because smaller farmers usually could not
participate (IUCN 2007:46). To accomplish this goal, the
project needed to change its approach.

CH OOS IN G P OL I CIE S T O SU S TAIN E COS YS T E M S E R VIC E S 66


For instance, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment found
that there is no reasonably accurate global map of wetlands.
Collecting data using standard methods at the regional level will
allow data to be combined across regions to build such a map.
In the Rio Grande story, the citys initiative provided a
foundation for strengthening monitoring systems at the
watershed and national levels. The assessment collected the
available data and started a watershed data base on the key
regulating services of water quality and ood protection. It
also located available data on land conversion and runoff of
pesticides and fertilizers estimated from purchases. This work
provides a good basis for the Rio Grande Commission to start
its work on the Regional Sustainable Biofuel Plan.

Use monitoring data in making


course corrections
Because much uncertainty remains about how ecosystems func-
tion, it is often useful to carry out monitoring as part of adaptive
management. This approach turns management of ecosystem
services into a series of experiments. It tests hypotheses about
how the components of an ecosystem function and interact.
Based on monitoring, managerial practices can be continually
adjusted and course corrections made. The following examples
show how monitoring information has been used to reclaim a
shery, reduce sedimentation to protect a water supply, and pro-
DA N T U N S TA L L

vide regional indicators of trends in drivers of ecosystem change


and the state of ecosystem services for a wide range of purposes.
Fisheries in Fiji. In Fiji, villages manage more than 400 local
An agriculture specialist examines seed from crop of pearl millet on a
farm in Tambhol Village in India. shing grounds. Staff from the University of the South Pacic
taught people in one village how to monitor clams, including
As policies are chosen, decision makers need to agree on how the basic ideas of sampling and statistics. The community
the effects will be monitored and fed back into adjusting the set aside 24 hectares opposite the village as a protected area
strategy for sustaining ecosystem services and achieving the de- for three years in an experiment to see if the clam population
velopment goal. This section focuses on two key aspects of learn- would recover from overharvesting. Monitoring revealed the
ing: planning monitoring so that it strengthens existing monitor- clams did dramatically increase in this protected area, which
ing systems and using the data to make course corrections. seeded adjacent areas for clamming as well. As a result, the
community has extended the time period for protecting the
Strengthen existing monitoring systems area indenitely (WRI et al. 2005:146-47).
Most countries have processes in place to track the state of their Water users association in India. An example from India
environment. When designing a system to monitor implemen- demonstrates how the results of monitoring implementation
tation of policies to sustain ecosystem services, it is important may be used to make changes in policy over decades to
to build links to these existing systems. meet goals of improving human well-being and maintaining
In addition, it is important to standardize the parameters ecosystem services. In the 1970s, the residents of Chandigarh
used to measure ecosystem change and policies effectiveness. faced a water shortage as Lake Sukhna lled up with sediment.
The experience of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment in An assessment showed much of the sediment came from the
collecting information on status and trends of ecosystem services village of Sukhomajiri upstream from Chandigarh. In 1982,
demonstrated the need to collect data in consistent ways so that Chandigarh formed a water users association to collect fees from
they can be compared across services and regions. Data are now water users and fund improvements in managing the watershed.
often inconsistent. In some cases, no global data are available. The rst step was to use the fees to build a reservoir in the
village of Sukhomajiri, the source of most of the sediment. The
reservoir helped landowners below it irrigate their crops. However,
people who did not own land and depended on common land
for grazing had no water rights and at the same time found their
access to grazing land above the reservoir restricted.

67 ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


ALIFERETI TAWAKE
Villagers in Fiji monitor clam populations to test the effectiveness of a protected area.

To give all households equal rights to water, the water users environmental performance. Community organizations can use
association replaced user fees with a tradable water rights the data in education campaigns and to hold the government
scheme giving every household the same rights to water. People accountable for reaching goals. Businesses and individuals
who did not use irrigation water could sell their rights and can compare their performance to the regional trends and see
use the funds to comply with watershed protection such as whether they need to change their behavior (Silicon Valley
reduction in grazing rights. However, the uctuations in water Environmental Partnership 2007). The Sustainable Silicon
availability made this approach difcult to implement. The Valley, a multi-stakeholder initiative aimed at improving
association again changed its approach; the association returned resource conservation, uses the reports results in working to
to collecting fees for watershed protection based on water use. reduce Silicon Valley carbon dioxide emissions (SSV 2007).
This solved the problem of water uctuation. They addressed In the past, shortcomings in monitoring and evaluation
the equity issue by employing people who did not own land to limited the effectiveness of many integration efforts (MA
carry out watershed protection measures (IUCN 2007). 2005d). Now more and more use of learning approaches
Indicators in California. A more recent example comes demonstrates how monitoring can become an integral part of
from a region in California. The Silicon Valley Environmental managing ecosystem services, providing
Partnership began to track environmental indicators on a continual feedback into decision making.
periodic basis and issued its rst report in 1999. This report
provided the baseline for a second report in 2003 that showed
six negative trends (including increased energy use and carbon
emissions); and ve positive trends (such as fewer fuel leaks ACTION POINTS
and vehicle miles traveled). Other trends show where progress l Revise strategy for achieving development goals
by addressing the risks and opportunities for
has reversed (on air quality, for example) or stabilized (garbage
ecosystem services.
and toxic releases). Some of the trends result from drivers of
l Review the existing legal framework and policy
ecosystem change such as population growth. Others track options to inuence drivers of ecosystem change.
changes in land use, water use, and air quality. A report for
l Choose policies to sustain ecosystem services.
2007 is being prepared.
l Monitor the effects of policies and use results to
The Silicon Valley report is posted on a public website
make course corrections.
and lists more than a dozen ways of using the results. Local
governments can create long-term scenarios, update land use
plans, and hold specic departments accountable for their

CHOOSING POLICIES TO SUSTAIN ECOSYSTEM SER VICES 68


The
5 Decision C O N T I N U E S

Where a
decision is made
The Rio Grande Report was nally out. A nice publica-
tion with maps and graphics describing the current state of
ecosystems and human well-being in Rio Grande, laying out
three future scenarios, and assessing some of the policies
implemented in the past. The Mayor couldnt complain; the
study had been publicly released with much fanfare and
media coverage, including the national magazine Week:
The Environmental Mayor it called him in a cover story,
not without exaggeration.
But now reality called again, and the Mayor soon had to
decide on a number of licenses required to start the biofuel
complex. The Company had submitted all the paperwork
for the rst renery, including an unsurprisingly favorable
environmental impact study. The study was of little interest
to the Mayor. It lacked the scope, credibility, and legitimacy
of the ecosystem services report he had commissioned. He
was more interested in the feasibility study for the com-
plex, which indicated that Rio Grande was, by far, the most
economically advantageous location. What really worried
him was the Company lobbying the national government
and international nancial institutions. That was why he was
now in the waiting room to see the Regional Prefect.
Mr. Mayor! greeted the Prefect. What a pleasure to
see you! Sorry to keep you waiting; I was on the phone with
the President. This region is very dear to him, you know!
Prefects were appointed by the President, and the Mayor
got the message loud and clear: this biofuel story was a
national issue, and as a result of the Rio Grande assessment
the Mayor was becoming too popular in an election year.
We are all very excited, started the Prefect, his eyes
xed on the Mayors. Biofuel is becoming a major global
industry, and our country, with Rio Grande at the forefront,
is poised to be part of the select group of nations leading its
development. Congratulations on the report you just produced. I saw it in the news
We are very proud of the report. It has even attracted the attention of international organizations, universities,
NGOs, even the Global Broadcasting Corporation! said the Mayor.
Yes, yes the Prefect hastened the pace. Now the big investment is waiting and we are counting on you to let
the wheels of our economy turn unhampered.
The people are worried
The Prefect interrupted, The President himself has promised the Company that there would be no problems with
this great project.

69 E C OS Y S T E M SE R V I CE S : A G U I D E F O R D E C I SI O N MA K ERS
Under different circumstances, this might have implied that interesting bribes were available to those who showed
good will. But this time things were not that simple: this was an election year for the Mayor, the issue was a popular
one in the region, and political power, more than money, was at stake.
I fully support the Presidents efforts to strengthen our economy and put an end to poverty. We all want to make
the best decisions for the country, but for that we need the right conditions
To the point, my friend
To be honest, I want that complex in Rio Grande as much as you and I think the national biofuel plan is good.
But I am not losing an election over it. And Im not jeopardizing the welfare of my city beyond reason. Weve recently
endured record oods. The report weve just nished offers a wonderful opportunity to be reasonable. If youve
been following the news youll have noticed that we are no longer focusing on the renery itself, but on the broader
development of the watershed. We are worried that developments in Springeld and Segura will harm the regions
ecosystems and hence our quality of life. We are not that worried about the plant itself, but with the prospect that
the biofuel industry may exacerbate monoculture, deforestation, food prices, migration, nutrient loading, river ow
disruption, tourism, and so on, all of which in the end will affect the citizens of Rio Grande. But there is room to do
the right things, provided we work together on two fronts.
Which are?
First, together with the national government and the municipalities of Springeld and Segura we develop a
Regional Sustainable Biofuel Plan to ensure appropriate, joint management of ecosystems. The plan will be prepared
with public participation, and the licenses will be issued together with the launching of the regional plan. When the
biofuel renery works begin, right before election day, the President will be able to inaugurate them in a friendly
environment. If we do things right, this will work out for almost everyone.
And our second area of collaboration?
You give me your endorsement in the upcoming election for Mayor of Rio Grande

The announcement had come as a surprise to all: the license for the renery would be approved only after a
Regional Sustainable Biofuel Plan was in place. It was the national Minister of Public Works himself who made the
announcement, citing The Rio Grande Report and declaring that the President was very concerned with the environ-
ment. In the spirit of The Rio Grande Report, a Commission that was credible and legitimate had been established
and given ve months to produce the Regional Sustainable Biofuel Plan.
The Rio Grande Secretary of Environment was designated to coordinate the work of the Commission, chaired by
a personal representative of the Prefect. Organizing it proved much harder than organizing the production of the Rio
Grande Report. This time the process had to deal with strong interests and ideological positions. For different reasons,
both Trotskyites and nationalists opposed the national biofuel goal, as did a loose coalition of NGOs, shermen,
and small business organizations. We cannot do this in an election year, the Secretary had argued. But the Mayor
seemed strangely condent that the main political partieshis own, and the national governmentswould not
disrupt the process. Besides, you started all this, he had told her.
So, trusting that the higher politics had been worked out, the Secretary set out to design a regional planning
exercise. First, her team identied the key players involved and their interests. They were very much the same actors
that had been identied when the Rio Grande Report was produced, except that now there was strong interest from
the national government and more explicit involvement of the biofuel multinational.
Next, the team discussed the steps to produce the Regional Sustainable Biofuel Plan.
During the rst two months they would conduct public consultations in three municipalities to dene the goal
of the Regional Sustainable Biofuel Plan and brainstorm about policy instruments. With those inputs, the Secretarys
team would draft the plan and submit it to the Commission. Finally, following the Commissions agreement and be-
fore submission for approval by the President, the plan would be put to a nonbinding referendum in the region.

THE DECISION 70
The
5 Decision C O N T I N U E S

There is no time to organize the referendum properly, the Mayor said. Besides, with all those public consulta-
tions I think the Plan already has a strong legitimacy. The President is ready to approve it next month, after the elec-
tion. And then the licenses for the renery will be issued.
The Plan still needs some work, especially the monitoring aspects, said the Secretary.
I think the Plan is ne as it is, insisted the Mayor.
The Secretary was not the only one who thought the institutional design for monitoring the Plan was weak. The
coalition of NGOs and social organizations thought so, too, and worried that after the Mayors re-election, with the
licenses for the renery issued, the government would lose interest in the Plan. So they decided to take to the streets of
Rio Grande, Springeld, and Segura simultaneously to put pressure on the government and the Company. This kept up
the momentum for a couple of months after the election, sufcient to work on a sound monitoring system for the Plan.
Developing the Plan had not been easy. First, it required the joint action of three municipalities, one regional
authority, and at least one national authority. Knowing that a strictly governmental arrangement would be fragile and
subject to party politics, the NGOs pressed hard to create a Council that included government, business, civil society,
farmers, and shermen. They would periodically review information gathered by an independent technical team and
recommend action by the different jurisdictions.
Second, it required good technical information. One of the virtues of The Rio Grande Report was that it had created
a data base for the watershed on water quality, ood protection, land conversion, and runoff of pesticides and fertilizers.
It was decided that this database would be expanded, and indicators would be developed for monitoring the Plans im-
plementation. The indicators would help track, for example, land conversion of forests and wetlands to biofuel crops and
pesticide and fertilizer use in the watershed. Also, tests would be conducted in selected areas of the watershed to monitor
how protected wetlands and new farming practices affected pollution, sedimentation, and amount of water runoff.
Third, it required the dissemination of new, adaptive techniques to manage the regions agricultural and other
ecosystems so that multiple services would be sustainedthat is, not only food, but also ood control, not only timber,
but also climate regulation, and so on. This adaptive approach demanded the implementation of a series of experiments
to learn from them and adjust management practices accordingly. And it required the active participation of farmers.
Two months after the Mayors re-election, the Regional Sustainable Biofuel Plan was deemed complete and ready
to be put into practice.

A representative from the biofuel Company had played an active part in the development of the Regional Sustain-
able Biofuel Plan. Initially dubious, he thought the plan that came out in the end was good. Explaining this to his CEO
was harder than he had expected, though.
A tax on our exports? Are you sure thats legal? Arent we protected by World Trade Organization rules? How
will the bottom-line be affected? The Board will be furious, said the CEO. It was snowing again and he was not in
the mood for bad news.
A 15 percent return on investment is still well above average for our industry. But thats only the nancial aspect.
This new Biofuel Plan is very interesting in social and environmental terms. By supporting it we are investing in our
own future business. And it helps the Companys image, too. Its the best insurance we could buy.
Insurance?
If our demand for sugar cane and maize results in big agribusiness and massive deforestation, food prices are
likely to increase, soil and water will be affected, and small landholders will be forced to move to town in large num-
bers. Possibly 25,000 people over a few years, according to some scenarios theyve made. Rio Grande cant absorb
that many people, and it wouldnt be long before it became a political issue and wed be the target of criticism. The
Plan calls for prioritizing community organization in the production of sugar cane and maize, and they want us to be
part of the process, supporting the certication of their sustainable production. Thats the easy part for us. What is
harder to digest is the tax they want to put on biofuel exports, although it is still much less than the incentives the
government has designed for our industry. Besides its not really a tax its more like a fee with a specic purpose: it
will feed a fund that will be used to secure land titles for smaller farmers and pay for ecosystem services manage-

71 E C OS Y S T E M SE R V I CE S : A G U I D E F O R D E C I SI O N MA K ERS
ment in areas affected by biofuel development.
Why should we worry about farmers? We are
not a charity. We want cheaper raw material and
this Plan will only make it more expensive!
There is more. The Plan rules out large infra-
structure projects on the riverthey expect to con-
trol water through natural means, or ecosystem
management. The whole region is to be divided
into ecological zones, each with special manage-
ment rules. Farm families living in strategic areas
will be compensated for preserving their land to
ensure good water quality and quantity in the river.
The money will come mostly from the tax on biofuel ex-
ports. So as long as there is a thriving biofuel industry in the region
there will be a fund to sustain the environment. Synergy! And since large
infrastructure is ruled out, and no hydroelectric dams will be built, the ques-
tion is: Where will the extra energy come from as development takes off? The
government is thinking of using biofuel to power transport in the region and save oil
imports to generate electricity. Synergy again, plus we position ourselves strategically.
But this constrains our growth prospects!
Maybe not. If the government can show that the biofuel industry is socially, environmentally, and economically
benecial to this region, the Presidents biofuel initiative will be accepted more easily elsewhere. In addition, under
this Plan we can expand our original capacity without having to go through another turbulent negotiation. We need
to keep in mind that we are in this business for the long run. In the long run, our bottom-line is not only nancial, but
social and environmental as well.
The CEO was very skeptical of mixing business with environmental and social issues. He liked it better before, when
all the Company cared about was making good prot, and social issues were left to the government. But younger
managers came out of business school with funny ideas. Sure, all very nice, he thought. But I better talk to the Presi-
dent again, he thought. This is looking too risky. Get me the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he told his secretary.

The Plans real test came shortly after the rst biofuel renery started operating, when the demand for biofuel
crops jumped sharply, dragging along the price of land and taxes. Speculators had begun to buy land from small hold-
ers, and several community organizations broke under the pressure.
Theyre now paying $1,000 per hectare. We should sell now, everyones doing it.
And do what? Start a small commerce? Join your brothers taxi business? Live in an apartment or a shanty? It wont be
long before youll need to nd a housekeeping job so we can make ends meet. At least here we have our piece of land.
It was late and warm, frogs were singing loud, and all sorts of insects uttered in the gallery. They had had this
discussion before. She had always been attracted by the city. She felt that in Rio Grande they would have more op-
portunities for a better life, like her brother, who now owned two taxis. He wasnt convinced. True, the work was
hard and they were poor. But this was his place, and the prospect of living in poverty in the city scared him.
Besides, things were changing. A couple of years back he had nally legalized his tenure and now felt more secure
on his landone and a half hectares with a river front of about 100 meters. And then government ofcials and peo-
ple from the city had started coming to talk about new plans. They would hold local meetings on Saturdays to speak
about the importance of the forest, of the river, about future changes in the climate and other things.
Mostly he didnt really care. He worked fruit and cattle, chopping down trees to sell every now and then when
he needed some extra cash. But now there was talk about a factory in Rio Grande that was buying maize and sugar
cane, to make fuel. Some farmers were already selling to larger ones, or cutting down the forest. He didnt have the

THE DECISION 72
The
5 Decision C O N T I N U E S

money or time to cut down the trees, and before setting re to his forest he wanted to be sure growing maize and
sugar cane was worth it. And that was when the Saturday meetings had started.
Work with us, one of the experts told him. Try it out for a few years and then you can decide. What the man
was proposing was appealing: Dont cut any more trees and well pay you. Dont grow maize or sugar cane, dont
use certain pesticides, and well help you sell your fruit at better prices. Build a small deck on the riverside and well
bring some tourists who will pay and your wife can sell crafts. Organize with your neighbors and well help you do
business. He liked these ideas because he loved his place and he dreamed of having a beautiful house in this beautiful
forest. When he saw some of his neighbors get on board, he too agreed to join the experiment.
Things had gone OK. Life had not improved as much as he had expected, but at least the prospects were good.
Then the price of the land jumped from $200 to $1,000 and many started losing patience, like his wife.

Postscript. Excerpt of Week magazine, 1 May 2037


Question: You started your career in Rio Grande. They say you were responsi-
ble for its transformation into a model city
Answer: Yes, that was a watershed in my career. Triggered by the installa-
tion of the rst biofuel renery in the country, we embarked on a cut-
ting-edge process of integrated, regional planning. That was very uncom-
mon back then. In retrospect I realize we were leading a great transition.
Our example was taken up in many other parts of the country and soon
sustainable ecosystem services management became a popular political
issue. And we were not alone! Similar things were happening around the
worldmillions of people were thinking and implementing new ways of
economic development. In time, all of this crystallized into a new paradigm,
and here we are Who would have thought, for example, that our genera-
tion would see fossil fuels become a minor source of energy? Who would
have thought we would see local communities empowered to the point of
putting a more humane face to globalization?

Question: What worked?


Answer: I think a key to the success was using dialogue over confronta-
tion, but also working with small farmers to prevent the expansion of
monoculture. The incentives we put in place helped us resist the pressure to
convert more forest when biofuel prices escalated in 2014. Somehow we
took the right turns at critical junctures. Rio Grande was attractive to the
biofuel industry for a number of reasonsour location, labor, and natural
port, and I think we knew how to use that in our favor. At one point the
biofuel company threatened to cancel its investment if we did not with-
draw the biofuel tax, but we knew that the project was still very protable
despite the tax. Also, we dared to choose an unorthodox mix of policies.
We could have gone with a market approach, or strict government control.
But we felt that the conditions were not appropriate for either. Institutions
back then were weaker than they are today, especially those that deal with
the environment. I was Secretary of Environment at the time, and I de-
nitely did not have the inuence the position carries today!

Question: And now you may be the second woman to become President,
and are the rst candidate to run on a sustainability platform.

73 E C OS Y S T E M SE R V I CE S : A G U I D E F O R D E C I SI O N MA K ERS
Conclusion
An Ecosystem Services Approach for
reconciling development and nature

T
oo often, development policies have unwittingly The Ecosystem Services Approach can beand needs to
diminished natures capacity to provide the goods becentral to choosing future development strategies and
and services people depend on. As the Millen- policies. It comprises a framework and methods for integrating
nium Ecosystem Assessment points out, meeting ecosystem services into decision making. Implementing such
a growing populations needs for food and water an approach involves a variety of methods, including an
and human health over the past 50 years has degraded many assessment of ecosystem service dependencies and impacts,
ecosystem services (MA 2005e:5-6). Fifteen services, including ecosystem service valuation, scenario building, and selection
the supply of sh and fresh water, are in serious decline glob- of policies and other interventions targeted at sustaining
ally, while another ve, such as water regulation and the supply ecosystem services.
of timber, hang in the balance. Decision makers can use these methods to learn the value
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment calls for signicant of natural assets and to identify the specic assets of nature
changes in the way we govern ecosystems. To keep pace that their goals depend on and affect. They can explore how
with the rapid decline in ecosystem services, we need to nd current and future trends in the condition of these services
better ways to make decisions about developments, ways that will affect their development goals in the places where they
explicitly take ecosystem services into account and reduce work. They can build partnerships across institutional and
trade-offs across services. By accounting for the dependencies political boundaries to address the risks and opportunities for
and impacts of development on ecosystem services, decision ecosystem services that each development decision presents.
makers can reconcile development goals and nature. This Ecosystems Services Approach can become the basis for
This guide introduces an Ecosystem Services Approach as reconciling development and nature, and sustaining both.
an early attempt at outlining how decision makers can take
practical steps to restore the health of ecosystem services and
make development more sustainable. It builds on the action
agenda laid out in Restoring Natures Capital, an earlier World
Resources Institute publication that calls for investing in nature
for development, in addition to simply protecting nature from
development.

CHOOSING POLICIES TO SUSTAIN ECOSYSTEM SER VIC ES 74


References
AAG (Association of American Geographers). 2003. Global Bennett, E. M., S. R. Carpenter, G. D. Peterson, G. S. Cumming,
change and local places: Estimating, understanding, and reducing M. Zurek, and P. Pingali. 2003. Why global scenarios need ecol-
greenhouse gases. Cambridge: Association of American Geogra- ogy. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 1 (6): 322-29.
phers GCLP Research Team, Cambridge University Press. Cited
Bohensky, E., B. Reyers, A.S. van Jaarsveld and C. Fabricius
in Wilbanks, T.J. 2006. How Scale Matters: Some Concepts
(eds.) 2004. Ecosystem Services in the Gariep basin: A Basin-
and Findings in Bridging Scales and Knowledge Systems: Concepts
Scale Component of the Southern African Millennium Ecosystem
and Applications in Ecosystem Assessment. Reid, W.V., F. Berkes,
Assessment (SAfMA). Stellenbosch, South Africa: SUN Press.
T.J. Wilbanks, and D. Capistrano (eds.). Washington DC: WRI.
Online at: www.maweb.org
Adeel, Z., J. Bogardi, C. Braeuel, P. Chasek, M. Niamir-Fuller,
Boyd, J. and S. Banzhaf. 2006. What are Ecosystem Services:
D. Gabriels, C. King, F. Knabe, A. Kowsar, B. Salem, T. Schaaf,
The Need for Standardized Environmental Accounting Units.
G. Shepherd, and R. Thomas. 2006. Overcoming One of the
RFF Discussion Paper. Washington, DC: RFF. Online at: http://
Greatest Environmental Challenges of Our Time: Re-thinking
www.rff.org/Documents/RFF-DP-06-02.pdf
Policies to Cope with Desertication: A Policy Brief Based on The
Joint International Conference: Desertication and the Interna- Brand, D. 2005. The Combined Challenge of Forestry and
tional Policy Imperative Algiers, Algeria, 17-19 December, 2006. Terrestrial Carbon Management. Pennant Hills, Australia:
Online at: http://www.inweh.unu.edu/inweh/drylands/Publica- State of New South Wales. Online at: http://www.forest.nsw.
tions/IYDD_Policy_Brief-June_2007.pdf gov.au/env_services/papers/tccofatcm/default.asp
Alcamo, J. 2001. Scenarios as tools for international envi- Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. 2007. CPAWS
ronmental assessments. Environmental Issue Report No. 24. Federal Action Plan for Nature Conservation. Online at: http://
Luxembourg: Ofce for Ofcial Publications of the European cpaws.org/news/archive/les/2006-10_federalactionplan.pdf
Communities, European Environment Agency.
CBD (Convention on Biological Diversity). 1993. Multilateral:
Anielski, M. and S. Wilson. 2006. Counting Canadas natural Convention on Biological Diversity. Online at: http://www.cbd.
capital: assessing the real value of Canadas boreal ecosystems. Ot- int/doc/legal/cbd-un-en.pdf
tawa: Canadian Boreal Initiative.
China Daily. 2005. Battling the Desert in Minqin. Septem-
AP (Associated Press). 2007. 50 million on the run from ber 14. Online at: http://www.china.org.cn/english/environ-
deserts, warming?: U.N. report urges nations to reverse the de- ment/142016.htm
cline of drylands. MSNBC. June 28. Online at: http://www.
Commonwealth of Australia. 2007. Ecosystem Services. On-
msnbc.msn.com/id/19479607/from/ET/
line at: http://www.daff.gov.au/brs/forest-veg/Ecosystem_Services
Assey, P., S. Bass, B. Cheche, D. Howlett, G. Jambiya, I. Ki-
Conservation Finance Alliance. 2003. Belize: Protected Areas
kula, S. Likwelile, A. Manyama, E. Mugurusi, R. Muheto and
Conservation Trust (PACT). Switzerland: CFA.
L. Rutasitara. 2007. Environment at the heart of Tanzanias
development: Lessons from Tanzanias National Strategy for CPET (Central Point for Expertise on Timber). 2007. UK
Growth and Reduction of Poverty (MKUKUTA). Natural Government Policy. Online at: http://www.proforest.net/cpet
Resource Issues Series No. 6. London: International Institute for
CSE (Centre for Science and Environment) India. 2004.
Environment and Development.
Rainwater Harvesting. Online at: http://www.rainwaterhar-
vesting.org/index.htm
Danielsen, F., M.K. Srensen, M.F. Olwig, V. Selvam, F. Parish,
N.D. Burgess, T. Hiraishi, V.M. Karunagaran, M.S. Rasmus-
sen, L.B. Hansen, A. Quarto, and N. Suryadiputra. 2005. The
Asian Tsunami: A Protective Role for Coastal Vegetation.
Science. 310 (5748): 643. Online at: http://www.sciencemag.
org/cgi/content/full/310/5748/643

75 ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


Department of Water Affairs and Forestry. 2007. Working for Finnegan, M.C. 1997. New York Citys watershed agreement:
Water Programme. Online at: http://www.dwaf.gov.za/wfw/ A lesson in sharing responsibility. Pace Environmental Law
Review. 14: 577-644.
DSouza, M. and C. Lobo. 2004. Watershed Development,
Water Management and the Millennium Development Goals. FOE (Friends of the Earth). 1989. Destruction of rain forest in
Presented at the Watershed Summit, Chandigarh, November the Brazilian Amazon and the role of Japan: Brieng paper pre-
25-27, 2004. Ahmednagar, India: Watershed Organization sented at the International Peoples Forum on Japan and the global
Trust. Cited in WRI, United Nations Development Pro- environment, 8-9 September 1989. Tokyo: FOE.
gramme, United Nations Environmental Programme, and the
FSA (Farm Service Agency). 2007. Conservation Reserve Pro-
World Bank. 2005. World Resources 2005: The Wealth of the
gram: Summary and Enrollment Statistics FY 2006. Online at:
Poor Managing Ecosystems to Fight Poverty. Washington, DC:
http://www.fsa.usda.gov/Internet/FSA_File/06rpt.pdf
World Resources Institute. Online at: http://multimedia.wri.
org/worldresources2005.cfm Gluckman, R. 2000. Beijings Desert Storm. October. Online
at: http://www.gluckman.com/ChinaDesert.html
Earthwatch Institute, World Resources Institute, WBCSD and
World Conservation Union. 2006. Business and Ecosystems: Issue Government of Alberta. 2007. Environment. Online at:
Brief: Ecosystem Challenges and Business Implications. Gland, http://environment.gov.ab.ca/default.aspx
Switzerland: Earthwatch.
Green, P., C.J. Vrsmarty, M. Meybeck, J. Galloway, and B.J.
Ernst, C. 2004. Protecting the Source: Land Conservation and Peterson, 2004. Pre-industrial and contemporary uxes of ni-
the Future of Americas Drinking Water. San Francisco, CA: Trust trogen through rivers: A global assessment based on typology.
for Public Land. Biogeochemistry. 68: 71105.
Eurostat. 2006. Sustainable Development Indicators. GRI (Global Reporting Initiative). 2007. Global Reporting
Online at: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page?_ Initiative. Online at: http://www.globalreporting.org/Home
pageid=1998,47433161,1998_47437045&_dad=portal&_
Gunderson, L. and C. S. Holling. 2002. Panarchy: Understand-
schema=PORTAL
ing transformation in human and natural systems. Washington
FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Na- DC: Island Press.
tions). 2000. Asia and the Pacic National Forestry Programmes:
Hackl, J. and T. Rohrich. 2001. Landscape Protection and Buffer
Update 34. Rome: FAO.
Zones as Part of Nature Conservation in Austria and their Impor-
FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). tance for Forests. Helsinki: WWF. Online at: http://www.wwf.
2002. Land-water Linkages in Rural Watersheds Case Study Series: /tiedotus/seminaarit/seminaarimateriaalit/landscape_protec-
Water user associations in the Cauca Valley, Colombia. Rome: FAO. tion_and.html
FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Hanrahan, C.E. and J. Zinn. 2005. Green Payments in U.S. and
Nations). 2004. Status and Trends in Mangrove Area Extent European Union Agricultural Policy. Washington DC: Congres-
Worldwide. Rome: FAO. Online at: http://www.fao.org/ sional Research Service. Online at: http://www.nationalaglaw-
docrep/007/j1533e/J1533E01.htm#P181_4100 center.org/assets/crs/RL32624.pdf
FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Hazen and Sawyer. 1997. The New York City Water Supply Sys-
Nations). 2007. State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture:2006. tem. New York: Hazen and Sawyer/Camp Dresser and McKee.
Rome: FAO. Online at: http://www.fao.org/docrep/009/
Hudson, K. and W. Watcharasakwet. 2007. The New Wal-
A0699e/A0699e00.htm
Mart Effect: Cleaner Thai Shrimp Farms. The Wall Street
Journal. (July 24): B1. Online at: http://online.wsj.com/article/
SB118523019620675464.html?mod=aol_wsj_hs&ru=aol

REF EREN CE S 76
References

Instituto Florestal. 2007. Reserva da Biosfera do Cinturo Verde MA (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment). 2005c. Ecosystems and
da Cidade de So Paulo. Online at: http://www.iorestal.sp.gov. Human Well-being: Scenarios, Volume 2. S. Carpenter, P. Pingali,
br/rbcv/index.asp E.M. Bennett and M. Zurek (eds.). Washington DC: Island Press.
Irwin, F. and J. Ranganathan. 2007. Restoring Natures Capital: An MA (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment). 2005d. Ecosystems
Action Agenda to Sustain Ecosystem Services. Washington DC: WRI. and Human Well-being: Policy Responses, Volume 3. K. Chopra,
R. Leemans, P. Kumar, and H. Simons (eds.). Washington DC:
IUCN. 2006. IUCN Ecosystem Services. Online at: http://
Island Press.
www.iucn.org/themes/cem/ourwork/ecservices/index.html
MA (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment). 2005e. Ecosystems
IUCN. 2007. Pay: Establishing payments for watershed services.
and Human Well-Being: Multiscale Assessments, Volume 4. D.
Gland, Switzerland: IUCN.
Capistrano, C. Samper, M. Lee, and C. Raudsepp-Hearne
Kahn, J. 2006. A Sea of Sand is Threatening Chinas Heart. (eds.). Washington DC: Island Press.
New York Times. (June 8).
MA (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment). 2005f. Living Beyond
Karr, J.R. 1981. Assessment of biotic integrity using sh communi- Our Means: Natural Assets and Human Well-Being: Statement
ties. Fisheries (Bethesda) 6 (6): 21-27. from the Board. Washington DC: WRI. Online at: http://www.
maweb.org
Kates, R. and T. Wilbanks. 2003. Making the global local:
Responding to climate change concerns from the bottom up. MA (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment). 2005g. Ecosystems
Environment. 45 (3): 12-23. Cited in Wilbanks, T.J. 2006. and Human Well-Being: Biodiversity Synthesis. Washington DC:
How Scale Matters: Some Concepts and Findings in Bridg- WRI. Online at: http://www.maweb.org
ing Scales and Knowledge Systems: Concepts and Applications in
Marshall, L. and S. Greenhalgh. 2006. Beyond the RFS: The
Ecosystem Assessment. Reid, W.V., F. Berkes, T.J. Wilbanks, and
Environmental and Economic Impacts of Increased Grain Ethanol
D. Capistrano (eds.). Washington DC: WRI.
Production in the U.S. Washington DC: WRI. Online at:
Landell-Mills, N. and I.T. Porras. 2002. Silver Bullet or Fools http://www.wri.org/climate/pubs_description.cfm?pid=4185
Gold? A Global Review of Markets for Forest Environmental
Munasinghe, M. 2007. Mainstreaming and Implementing the
Services and Their Impact on the Poor. London: International
MA Results by Integrating them into Sustainable Development
Institute for Environment and Development. Online at: http://
Strategy in Policies for Sustainable Governance of Global Eco-
www.iied.org/pubs/pdf/full/9066IIED.pdf
system Services. Ranganathan, J., M. Munasinghe, and F. Irwin
MA (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment). 2003. Ecosystems and (eds.). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
Human Well-Being: A Framework for Assessment. Washington
Myers, N. 1998. Lifting the veil on perverse subsidies. Nature
DC: Island Press. Online at: http://www.maweb.org
392: 327-328 (26 March).
MA (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment). 2005a. Ecosystems
Natural Capital Project. 2007. Natural Capital Project. On-
and Human Well-Being: Synthesis. Washington DC: Island
line at: http://www.naturalcapitalproject.org/mw.html
Press. Online at: http://www.maweb.org
NRC (National Research Council). 2000. Watershed Man-
MA (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment). 2005b. Ecosystems and
agement for Potable Water Supply: Assessing the New York City
Human Well-being: Current State and Trends, Volume 1. R. Has-
Strategy. Washington DC: The National Academies Press.
san, R. Scholes, and N. Ash (eds.). Washington DC: Island Press.
NYC DEP (New York City Department of Environmental
Protection). 1993a. Draft Generic Environmental Impact State-
ment for the Draft Watershed Regulations for the Protection From
Contamination, Degradation, and Pollution of the New York City
Water Supply and Its Sources. Corona, NY: NYC DEP.

77 ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


NYC DEP (New York City Department of Environmental Pro- Puget Sound Partnership. 2007. Puget Sound Partnership.
tection). 1993b. Watershed Protection through Whole Community Online at: http://www.psp.wa.gov
Planning: A Charter for Watershed Partnership. Ithaca: New York
Reid, W.V., F. Berkes, T.J. Wilbanks, and D. Capistrano. 2006.
State Water Resources Institute, Center for the Environment,
Bridging and Knowledge Systems: Concepts and Applications in
Cornell University.
Ecosystem Assessment. Washington DC: WRI.
Ofce of Policy, Economics and Innovation and Ofce of
Rickets, T.H., G.C. Daily, P.R. Ehrlich, and C.D. Michener.
Water. 2005. Applying Lessons Learned from Wetlands Mitiga-
2004. Economic value of tropical forest to coffee produc-
tion Banking to Water Quality Trading. Washington DC: US
tion. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 101 (34):
Environmental Protection Agency.
12579-12582.
Paden, C. and A. Shen. 1995. New York City water under
Rogers, K., D. Roux and H. C. Biggs. 2000. Challenges for
pressure. Inside DEP 1 (1): 18.
catchment management agencies: lessons from bureaucracies,
The Parliament of Australia, Senate Committee. 2006. Water business and resource management. Water SA 26 (4): 505-511.
Policy Initiatives. Canberra: Government of Australia. Online
Roig-Franzia, M. 2007. A Culinary and Cultural Staple in
at: http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/rrat_ctte/rural_
Crisis. Washington Post. (Jan. 27): A1, A16.
water/report/index.htm
Sandler, Neal. 2005. Israel: Waterworks for the World? Busi-
Perrot-Matre, D. 2006. The Vittel payments for ecosystem
nessWeek. (December 30). Online at: http://www.businessweek.
services : a perfect PES case ? London: International Institute
com/technology/content/dec2005/tc20051230_495029.htm
for Environment and Development. Online at: http://www.
iied.org/NR/forestry/documents/TheVittelpaymentsforecosys- Sathirathai, S. and E.B. Barbier. 2001. Valuing Mangrove
temservices.pdf Conservation in Southern Thailand. Contemporary Economic
Policy 19 (2): 10922.
Perrot-Matre, D. and P. Davis. 2001. Case Studies of Markets
and Innovative Financial Mechanisms for Water Services from Scheffer, M.S., S.R. Carpenter, J.A. Foley, C. Folke, and B. Walker.
Forests. Washington DC: Forest Trends. Online at: http://www. 2001. Catastrophic shifts in ecosystems. Nature 413: 591-96.
forest-trends.org/documents/publications/casesWSofF.pdf
Schneeweiss, J. 1997. Watershed protection strategies: A case
Peterson, G.D., D. Beard, B. Beisner, E. Bennett, S. Carpen- study of the New York City Watershed in light of the 1996
ter, G. Cumming, L. Dent, and T. Havlicek. 2003. Assessing Amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act. Villanova Envi-
future ecosystem services: a case study of the northern highland ronmental Law Journal 9:77119.
lake district, Wisconsin. Conservation Ecology 7(3): 1. Online
Scholes, R. J. and R. Biggs (eds.). 2004. Ecosystem Services in
at: http://www.consecol.org/vol7/iss3/art1
Southern Africa: A Regional Assessment. Pretoria, South Africa:
Pfeffer, M. J. and L. P. Wagenet. 1999. Planning for Environ- Council for Scientic and Industrial Research.
mental Responsibility and Equity: A Critical Appraisal of Rural/
Schwartz, P. 1996. The Art of the Long View: Planning for the
Urban Relations in the New York City Watershed in Planning,
future in an uncertain world. New York: Doubleday Currency.
Theory and Practice. Elson, M. (ed.) Oxford: Routledge.
Seattle Public Utilities. 2007. Street Edge Alternatives (SEA
Phillips, M.J. and R.P. Subasinghe. 2006. FAO, NACA,
Streets) Project. Online at: http://www.seattle.gov/util/
UNEP/GPA, WB, and WWF Consortium on Shrimp Farming
About_SPU/Drainage_&_Sewer_System/Natural_Drain-
and the Environment receives the Green Award for its Inter-
age_Systems/Street_Edge_Alternatives/index.asp
national Principles for Responsible Shrimp Farming. FAO
Aquaculture Newsletter 36: 46 47 (December). Silicon Valley Environmental Parternship. 2007. The Partner-
ship. Online at: http://www.svep.org

REF EREN CE S 78
References

SSV (Sustainable Silicon Valley). 2007. About SSV. Online United Kingdom. House of Commons Environmental Audit
at: www.sustainablesiliconvalley.org/about.htm Committee. 2007. Government Reponse to the Committees
First Report of Session 2006-07: The UN Millennium Ecosys-
Stevenson, N.J. 1997. Disused shrimp ponds: Options for rede-
tem Assessment. Sixth Special Report of Session 2006-07. 3 July.
velopment of mangroves. Coastal Management 25(4): 425-435.
United Republic of Tanzania. 2005. National Strategy for Growth
Thongbai P., D. Pipattwattanakul, P. Preechapanya, and K.
and Reduction of Poverty (NSGRP), Vice Presidents Ofce, June
Manassrisuksi. 2006. Participatory Scenarios for Sustainable
2005. Online at: http://www.tanzania.go.tz/pdf/nsgrptext.pdf
Management of ASB Benchmark site in Thailand: Case of Mae
Kong Kha Sub-watershed of Mae Chaem Watershed. Paper United States Congress Ofce of Technology Assessment.
presented to the International Symposium Towards Sustainable 1995. Environmental Policy Tools: A Users Guide. Washington
Livelihoods and Ecosystems in Mountainous Regions, 7-9 March DC: US Government Printing Ofce.
2006 Chiang Mai, Thailand.
United States House. 2006. The Pension Protection Act of 2006.
Tomich T.P., A. Cattaneo, S. Chater, H.J. Geist, J. Gockowski, 109th Cong., 2nd sess., H.R. 4.
D. Kaimowitz, E.F. Lambin, J. Lewis, O. Ndoye, C. Palm, F.
USDA (United States Department of Agriculture). 2006. Ag-
Stolle, W.D. Sunderlin, J.F. Valentim, M. van Noordwijk, and
riculture: Organic Certication. Online at: http://www.usda.
S.A. Vosti. 2005. Balancing Agricultural Development and
gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?navid=ORGANIC_
Environmental Objectives: Assessing Tradeoffs in the Humid
CERTIFICATIO&navtype=RT&parentnav=AGRICULTURE
Tropics in Slash and Burn: The Search for Alternatives. C.A.
Palm, S.A. Vosti, P.A. Sanchez, and P.J. Ericksen (eds.) New USDA NRCS (United States Department of Agriculture: Na-
York: Columbia University Press. tional Resources Conservation Service). 2007. Buffer Strips:
Common Sense Conservation. Online at: http://www.nrcs.
UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). 2003.
usda.gov/FEATURE/buffers/
Business and the Millennium Development Goals: A framework
for action. London: International Business Leaders Forum. US EPA (United States Environmental Protection Agency).
2007a. Ecological Research. Online at: http://www.epa.
UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme). 2005.
gov/ord/quicknder/ecoresearch.htm
One Planet Many People: Atlas of Our Changing Environment.
Nairobi: Division of Early Warning Assessment and UNEP. US EPA (United States Environmental Protection Agency).
2007b. New York City Watershed Agreement. Online at: http://
UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme). 2007.
www.epa.gov/owow/watershed/ny/nycity.html
Ecosystem Approach. Online at: http://www.cbd.int/
programmes/cross-cutting/ecosystem/default.shtml US FSC (United States Forest Stewardship Council). 2006.
The Forest Stewardship Council. Online at: http://www.
UNEP-WCMC (United Nations Environment Programme
fscus.org/about_us/
World Conservation Monitoring Centre). 2006. In the Front
Line: Shoreline protection and other ecosystem services from van der Heijden, K. 1996. Scenarios: The Art of Strategic Con-
mangroves and coral reefs. Online at: http://www.unep.org/pdf/ versation. New York: Wiley.
infrontline_06.pdf
Welch, R.M. and R.D. Graham. 1999. A new paradigm for
world agriculture; meeting human needs. Productive, sustain-
able and nutritious. Field Crops Research 60: 1-10.

79 ECOSYSTEM SERVICES: A GUIDE FOR DECISION MAKERS


Wollenberg, E., D. Edmunds, and L. Buck. 2000. Using sce- WRI (World Resources Institute), United Nations Develop-
narios to make decisions about the future: anticipatory learning ment Programme, United Nations Environment Programme,
for the adaptive co-management of community forests. Land- and the World Bank. 2000. People and Ecosystems: The Fraying
scape and Urban Planning 47: 65-77. Web of Life. Washington, DC: WRI
World Commission on Dams. 2000. Dams and Development: WRI (World Resources Institute), United Nations Develop-
A New Framework for Decision-Making. London: Earthscan. ment Programme, United Nations Environment Programme,
Online at: http://www.dams.org/report/contents.htm and the World Bank. 2005. World Resources 2005: The Wealth
of the Poor Managing Ecosystems to Fight Poverty. Washington,
WOTR (Watershed Organization Trust). 2002. Darewadi
DC: World Resources Institute. Online at: http://multimedia.
Watershed Project. Project summarizing paper. Ahmednagar,
wri.org/worldresources2005.cfm
India: WOTR. Online at http://www.wotr.org. Cited in WRI,
United Nations Development Programme, United Nations WWF (World Wildlife Fund). 2003. Brazilian Government Re-
Environmental Programme, and the World Bank. 2005. World veals Alarming Rate of Deforestation in Amazon: World Wildlife Fund
Resources 2005: The Wealth of the Poor Managing Ecosystems Responding to Forest Threats. Washington DC: WWF. Online at:
to Fight Poverty. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute. http://www.worldwildlife.org/news/displayPR.cfm?prID=63
Online at: http://multimedia.wri.org/worldresources2005.cfm
Zurek, M. B. and T. Henrichs. 2007. Linking scenarios across
WOTR (Watershed Organization Trust). 2005. Darewadi geographical scales in international environmental assessment.
Project Benets 1996-2005. Unpublished table. Cited in WRI, Technological Forecasting and Social Change 74 (8): 1282-1295
United Nations Development Programme, United Nations (October).
Environmental Programme, and the World Bank. 2005. World
Resources 2005: The Wealth of the Poor Managing Ecosystems
to Fight Poverty. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute.
Online at: http://multimedia.wri.org/worldresources2005.cfm
WRI (World Resources Institute). 2007. Interactive Forestry
Atlas of Cameroon. Washington DC: WRI.
WRI (World Resources Institute), ILRI (International Live-
stock Research Institute), DRSRS (Department of Resource
Surveys and Remote Sensing, Ministry of Environment and
Natural Resources of Kenya), and CBS (Central Bureau of
Statistics, Ministry of Planning and National Development of
Kenya). 2007. Natures Benets: An Atlas of Ecosystems and Hu-
man Well-Being in Kenya. Washington DC and Nairobi: WRI

REF EREN CE S 80
Other publications from
WRIs Mainstreaming Ecosystem
Services Initiative
Restoring Natures Capital: An Action Agenda to Sustain Ecosystem Services
Using the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment as its backdrop, Restoring Natures Capital
proposes an action agenda for business, government, and civil society to reverse ecosystem
degradation. The authors contend that governance who makes decisions, how they are
made, and with what information is at the heart of sustaining ecosystems capacity to
provide vital services for future generations to come.

Natures Benets in Kenya: An Atlas of Ecosystems and Human Well-Being


Endorsed by ve Permanent Secretaries in Kenya and with a Foreword by Wangari Maathai
(2004 Nobel Peace Prize recipient), this report provides a new approach to integrating spa-
tial data on poverty and ecosystems. The atlas overlays georeferenced statistical informa-
tion on population and household expenditures with spatial data on ecosystem services to
yield a picture of how land, people, and prosperity are related in Kenya. Upcoming reports
will focus on the application of poverty and ecosystem service mapping in Uganda.

Mainstreaming Ecosystem Services Considerations at the


Multilateral Development Banks [forthcoming]
Slated for release in 2008, this publication will show how Multilateral Development Banks
(MDBs) can better achieve development objectives, including the Millennium
Development Goals, by implementing an Ecosystem Services Approach. Key entry points
for mainstreaming the approach are discussed as well as tools for real life implementation.

Guidelines for Conducting a Corporate Ecosystem Services Review


[forthcoming]
Scheduled for release in 2008, The Corporate Ecosystem Services Review is a methodology to
help corporate managers proactively identify business risks and opportunities arising from
their companys dependence and impact on ecosystems. The methodology was developed
by WRI, the Meridian Institute, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development
(WBCSD) and has been road tested by six multinational companies.

What are Reefs Worth Economic Valuation of


Coral Reefs in Tobago and St. Lucia [forthcoming]
Building on extensive analysis in the Eastern Caribbean, WRI has developed a methodology
to put an economic value on the ecosystem services provided by coral reefs. This white
paper, due out in 2008, will release the ndings of these preliminary valuation studies.
It will highlight the high economic value of coral reefs, the sources of these values,
the potential economic losses associated with the degradation of reefs, and the
uncertainties inherent in this type of valuation.

An Overview of Water Quality Trading [forthcoming]


Planned for release in 2008, this report will be an
overview of water quality trading programs around the world.
It will examine how various programs have approached design ele-
ments (e.g., trade ratios, credit calculations, cost-share, market
structure). It will also examine common hurdles and successes
when establishing water quality trading programs.

HISASHI ARAKAWA (WWW.EMERALD.ST)


Partners in Developing the Guide
Centro Fueguino para el Desarrollo Sustentable is a non-prot
organization based in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina that promotes the transition
to sustainable development in Patagonia and beyond through all forms of
environmental education, the production of environmental information and
civic action at the local level.

DAI is an employee-owned, international consulting company based in the


US. Since 1970, DAI has worked in 150 developing and transition countries,
providing comprehensive development solutions in areas including crisis mitigation
and recovery, democratic governance and public sector management, agriculture and
agribusiness, private sector development and nancial services, economics and trade,
HIV/AIDS, avian inuenza control, and water and natural resources management.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) leads
international efforts to defeat hunger. Serving both developed and developing coun-
tries, FAO acts as a neutral forum where all nations meet as equals to negotiate agree-
ments and debate policy. FAO is also a source of knowledge and information. The
organization helps developing countries and countries in transition modernize and
improve agriculture, forestry and sheries practices and ensure good nutrition for
all. Since FAOs founding in 1945, the organization has focused special attention on
developing rural areas, home to 70 percent of the worlds poor and hungry people.

The Nature Conservancy is a leading conservation organization working around


the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people.
To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been re-
sponsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and
have helped preserve more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean,
Asia and the Pacic. Visit The Nature Conservancy on the Web at www.nature.org.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the UNs global devel-
opment network, an organization advocating for change and connecting countries
to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. We are on
the ground in 166 countries, working with them on their own solutions to global
and national development challenges. As they develop local capacity, they draw on
the people of UNDP and our wide range of partners.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is the voice for the
environment within the United Nations system, acting as an advocate, educator,
catalyst and facilitator, promoting sound environmental management and the wise
use of the planets natural assets for sustainable development. UNEPs mission is
to provide leadership and encourage partnership in caring for the environment by
inspiring, informing and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of
life without compromising that of future generations.

The UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre is the biodiversity assess-


ment and policy support arm of the United Nations Environment Programme. The
Centre has been in operation for over 25 years, providing objective, scientically
rigorous products and services to help national and international decision makers
recognize the value of biodiversity and apply this knowledge to all that they do.
Author Afliations
Neville Ash Kasper Kok
United Nations Environment Programme Land Dynamics Group,
World Conservation Monitoring Centre Wageningen University

Elena Bennett Nicolas Lucas


McGill University Centro Fueguino para el
Desarrollo Sustentable
Karen Bennett
World Resources Institute Charles Perrings
Global Institute of Sustainability,
Reinette Biggs Arizona State University
Center for Limnology,
University of Wisconsin Janet Ranganathan
World Resources Institute
Philip Bubb
United Nations Environment Programme Ciara Raudsepp-Hearne
World Conservation Monitoring Centre McGill University

Lauretta Burke Dagmar Timmer


World Resources Institute One Earth Initiative

Emily Cooper Sandra J. Velarde


World Resources Institute Iniciativa Amaznica-CIAT

Craig Hanson Paul West


World Resources Institute The Nature Conservancy;
Center for Sustainability and the
Charles Iceland Global Environment,
World Resources Institute University of Wisconsin-Madison

Frances Irwin Monika Zurek


World Resources Institute Food and Agriculture Organization of
the United Nations
The World Resources Institute is a non-prot, non-partisan environmental
think tank that goes beyond research to provide practical solutions to the worlds
most urgent environment and development challenges. WRI works in partnership
with scientists, businesses, governments, and non-governmental organizations in
more than seventy countries to provide information, tools and analysis to address
problems such as the degradation of ecosystems and their capacity to provide for
human well-being.
ISBN-978-1-56973-669-2

You might also like