The report of the joint British Ecologcial Society – UK Biodiversity Research Advisory Group (BRAG) meeting on the future of the UK National Ecosystem Assessment and Intergovernmental Science – Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is now available. The session was held as part of the BES Annual Meeting at the University of Sheffield, on 13th September.

We’re now recruiting an intern, to join us for three months from January 2012, working for two days each week with the BES Policy Manager. We will cover travel expenses within London and lunch costs of up to £5 per day.

You will be involved in all aspects of our policy work, including drafting responses to consultations, helping to organise meetings and attending events to represent the Society and our members to external contacts.

The closing date is Friday 18th November, at 17.00.

Interviews will be held on the morning of Monday 5th December.

Full details of how to apply are available here.

The latest BES Policy Digest is now available, outlining policy developments across the four UK Governments, parliament, the Research Councils and Europe since we published the last e-newsletter in July.

Today is the first day of a plenary meeting to discuss and decide upon the formation of the Integovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), convened by the UN Environment Programme. Representatives from the United Nations, and observers from NGOs and other bodies, have assembled in Nairobi, Kenya, to consider how IPBES will operate and, amongst other decisions, determine where the IPBES secretariat will be located.

On the eve of the meeting, Prof. Bob Watson, Defra’s Chief Scientific Adviser, gave an interview to the Independent newspaper, in which he outlined his hopes for IPBES. Prof. Watson suggested that the only way in which IPBES can function effectively will be if developing nations have ownership over any in-country ecosystem assessments which are conducted, and if these are conducted by scientists from that nation – similar to the UK National Ecosystem Assessment. “If they think that this is just the white world, the developed world, telling them what to do, that’ll be the end of it.”

The BES, together with the UK Biodiversity Research Advisory Group (UK BRAG) organised a session at the BES Annual Meeting in Sheffield last month which introduced the IPBES to the assembled ecologists. Dr Andrew Stott, Defra’s representative to IPBES from the civil service, outlined the role of IPBES, as agreed at a meeting in Busan, South Korea, in 2010. A copy of Dr Stott’s presentation is available from the BES website.

As outlined by Dr Stott, IPBES will:

- Generate new knowledge: identifying information needed for policy; catalysing research and surveying
- Conduct regular and timely assessments: at global, regional and sub-regional scales; and on thematic and ‘new topics identified by science’.
- Provide support for policy formulation, through promoting access to policy-relevant tools and methods;
- Have a capacity building function: identifying needs; supporting the highest priority needs; catalysing funding.

IPBES is intended as an ‘IPCC for biodiversity’; a credible, scientifically independent body which is policy relevant but not policy prescriptive (similar to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).

At the plenary meeting over the next few days decisions will be made about how the IPBES is structured; whether, for example, a scientific advisory group is formed which can advise the Plenary – the IPBES decision-making body- on scientific and technical aspects of the work programme and which can approve specific scientific procedures related to how ecosystem assessments are conducted. A further meeting in Nairobi, in March/ April 2012, will see delegates decide on further aspects of how the IPBES will work, including its work programme.

As IPBES develops, there are likely to be opportunities for ecologists and others to get involved with the conduct of assessments and with capacity building, although questions remain about how to incentivise scientists to take part in these activities (for example, through university reward structures such as the Research Excellence Framework). Ecologists and others in the UK who would like to find out more about IPBES and who would like to remain fully engaged with the development of the Platform, can join the UK Stakeholder Group, maintained by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC).

The report of the joint Natural England – BES meeting on ‘Adapting Conservation to a Changing Climate‘ has been published. This meeting took place over two days in January 2011 and saw over 120 policy-makers, ecologists and conservation practitioners attend Charles Darwin House for lively discussion and networking.

Climate change is widely regarded as the major long-term threat to biodiversity and ecosystem services and it is essential that conservation adapts to deal with this threat. General principles have been identified and adaptation is starting to happen, but we need to step up the pace.

Effective adaptation requires a strong partnership between researchers, practitioners and policy makers. It is essential that adaptation measures are developed on the basis of sound science, combined with a rigorous assessment of their feasibility and acceptability to society.

The key messages to emerge from presentation and discussion at the conference are:

1) Climate change adaptation needs to start happening to a far greater extent than currently. It was not difficult to find research into possible adaptation strategies, assessments of vulnerability and plans for implementing adaptation. There are many fewer examples of adaptation that is actually happening.

2) Pilot studies need to be established to help address the uncertainties around determining the most effective adaptation measures, for example on the relative importance of increasing connectivity of habitat networks, compared to improving or enlarging existing sites. Good monitoring and assessment of the outcomes are essential.

3) The issues posed by climate change are different depending on the extent to which climate actually changes. To put it crudely, there is a big distinction between dealing with 2°C and 4 °C of warming. At the lower end of the scale, there is plenty of scope to increase the resilience of the landscapes and ecosystems that we currently have. At the higher end, this will not be sufficient and we need to consider much more
radical approaches and be prepared to accept species in very different places and place that look very different.

4) Climate change adaptation needs to be developed as part of a wider transformation in the approach of human societies to the natural environment, in which we understand it better and value it more.

Full details of this meeting, together with copies of speakers’ presentations, are available from the BES website.

The BES is refreshing its policy priorities. What do you think we should be focusing on?

From food security, to multiple demands on land, to balancing the trade-offs between ecosystem services, 2020 will bring great challenges for the UK and internationally. Ecological science can inform the response to these challenges. Where should the BES be focusing our efforts to ensure that our members’ science is fed into the policy debates to shape our future?

Leave your comment here on the blog, ontribute your views through Twitter (#BES2020), or email the Policy Team.

Professor Jules Pretty gave a fascinating and wide-ranging insight into the sustainable intensification of agriculture on Tuesday afternoon at the BES Annual Meeting; this year’s BES Lecture. Prof. Pretty suggested that there was an ‘emerging consensus’ around the necessity of improving agricultural productivity whilst minimising harm to the environment – as testified by recent reports from the Foresight Global Food and Farming Futures programme, the Royal Society and others.

By 2050, the Foresight report has concluded, a 50-100% increase in food production will be needed worldwide to feed a growing human population. The precise figure will depend on how fast and far the population grows and on the consumption patterns which emerge. Food choices are currently converging. Where these were previously divergent, driven by choices and norms informed by differences in culture, now a Western ideal of consumption dominates, informing a greater consumption of meat in China, for example. Food price spikes in recent years have also adversely and disproportionately affected the poor and the hungry. Such trends will only continue unless radical reform is made to the systems by which we currently produce food, which involve intensive application of fertilisers, an increased use of machinery and a huge growth in livestock for meat and dairy which themselves eat grain which could be used to feed the hungry.

Read the full report at the BES Annual Meeting blog.

An incredibly diverse and busy programme of sessions at the BES Annual Meeting this year means that I am only now able to find the time to report on Prof. Bill Sutherland’s Monday afternoon plenary; ‘Twelve months in Ecology’. Since Bill’s talk, we have also seen a fantastic plenary from Professor Jules Pretty, University of Essex – discussing the importance of social capital in ensuring ’sustainable intensification’ of agriculture – which you can now read about on the BES Annual Meeting blog. We have also had a fantastic, and packed, session on ‘What next for the UK National Ecosystem Assessment and IPBES?’, which I hope to find the time to report on tomorrow.

But for now, back to Prof. Sutherland’s review of the past year and some of the major changes which have taken place in policy impinging upon – or informed by – ecological science. One recurring theme which has come across in the sessions I have attended this year (apart from soil, which seems to have been a hot topic at this meeting) is that the past few months have seen a ‘paradigm’ shift in how the UK Government considers biodiversity and ecosystem services. First the Lawton Review of England’s protected area network, then the National Ecosystem Assessment, and latterly the Natural Environment White Paper: late 2010 and 2011 to date have seen the publication of some potentially highly significant reports and policy papers likely to have a major effect on the direction of environment policy for some time to come. But, Prof. Sutherland highlighted, the most important test – implementation – is still to come and there are some signs that the good intentions propounded in the White Paper will not be carried through easily into other areas of Government policy.

Bill’s talk was inspired by a visit to a conservation biology conference, where despite the blanket coverage of the ‘deepwater horizon’ oil spill in newsagents outside the conference centre, very little mention was made of the significance of this news within the meeting sessions. The BES, and other learned societies, Bill argued, must consider issues of importance and signficance within wider society. Hence his whistlestop tour through the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Nagoya conference in October 2010, and subsequent ‘Aichi Targets’ and strategic plan for tackling biodiversity loss worldwide; his examination of the Copenhagen climate change summit in 2010 – a cause for pessimism, Bill suggested, not to mention the policy documents which have come out of the UK this year. Badger culling and the sale of national nature reserves and the Government’s U-turn over the sale of the Forestry Commission estate were also mentioned.

Bill urged members of the BES to engage with policy-makers as these and other issues are taken forward. Sound science is needed in policy debate and Bill urged the Society to engage even more clearly and in an even more relevant fashion with policy development. Issues which members should be aware of in the future, rising up the agenda, Bill suggested, are Arctic exploration for oil – and what the opening up of the Arctic may mean for biodiversity – reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (suggesting a possible shift back to a focus on food production, away from recent rhetoric on the incorporation of ecosystem services), REDD+, an increase in the use of biodiversity offsetting in the UK and the formation of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

Bill started on a note of pessimism, but finished optimistically, highlighting good news around recent species recovery, with peregrines breeding in London, salmon returning to many rivers, otters now found in every county in England and the near eradication of the ruddy duck as examples. Bill also suggested that there has been a shift in recent months towards policy-makers using evidence as a basis for a decisions to a greater extent.

Whilst I agree with much of what Bill had to say, and don’t think that his optimism is misplaced, I would say that the recent National Planning Policy Framework and Red Tape Challenge suggest that there is much more that ecologists and those who care about the environment must do before we can consider Government really ‘get’ the importance and significance of biodiversity. The NPPF was an opportunity for the Government to demonstrate that it had really taken the sentiments within the White Paper on board, and were prepared to integrate environmental concerns across all areas of decision making. There is little evidence that this is in fact the case, with a presumption in favour of sustainable development (economic growth is the major driver) throughout the document. The Red Tape Challenge too could pose a serious threat to environmental protection and should not simply be dismissed, as discussed elsewhere on this blog.

Prof. Sutherland’s talk was a useful clarion call for action on the part of the the BES and I for one hope that this will galvanise interest and engagement with policy issues amongst the membership.

The BES Annual Meeting is underway in Sheffield, with a packed day of presentations and sessions so far. The meeting began with the BES Tansley Lecture, this year delivered by Dr Diana Wall from Colorado State University. Dr Wall discussed the significance of soil biota to the delivery of ecosystem services and stressed that the study of this aspect of biodiversity has been largely neglected to date by ecologists. Dr Wall’s salutary message, as expressed by Roosevelt in 1935, was that ‘A nation that destroys its soil destroys itself’; it is vital that ecologists study this heretofore neglected component of ecosystems in order to better understand how soils sustain the capacity to provide critical services, including food, and how soils can be managed in this context.

The BES Policy Team has so far attended a fascinating range of talks – on everything from the delivery of ecosystem services, to the effectiveness of protected areas under climate change, to an examination of whether ecological networks – as propounded by the Lawton Review - are effective. This latter talk was perhaps the most interesting, as Prof. Adrian Newton from Bournemouth University discussed his team’s use of a Google application to identify what the public of Dorset valued about their natural environment. In analysing the market and non-market ecosystem services delivered by the Frome river catchment in South West England, Prof. Newton and his team built up a composite map illustrating carbon storage, crop production, livestock, timber, cultural services and recreational opportunities. His conclusion? That ecological networks can work for biodiversity – increasing the connectivity of habitat and species richness – and for the delivery of some ecosystem services, but may not work economically, as the opportunity costs for network creation are likely to be higher than the market value of the services delivered.

As with all the sessions at the Annual Meeting so far, there was limited opportunity to delve into more depth with Prof. Newton about this work; the programme for today is just so busy. However there are plenty of networking opportunities and delegates are sure to have the time to ask about this and the other topics covered over a glass of wine later at the first poster session.

Before that point however, Prof. Bill Sutherland will be giving his perspective on the past 12-months in ecology, touching on everything from the Natural Environment White Paper and Lawton Review to the National Planning Policy Framework, badgers and bovine TB and marine protected areas. More information will follow about this in a blog post tomorrow. For now, you can follow all the latest updates from the Annual Meeting through twitter using #BES2011, and get more in depth analysis of sessions through the BES Annual Meeting blog. The latest post discusses a session which took place at lunchtime – on ‘Research Paper to Press Release’, discussing how ecologists can engage with the media to showcase their work.

The BES Policy Team is now on holiday until 5th September and the blog will return then.