The website of the Ecosystems Knowledge Network (EKN) was launched yesterday at www.ekn.defra.gov.uk.

The site provides a gateway to information and resources to help promote understanding of, and the tools to apply, an ‘ecosystems approach’. Video clips and case studies provide perspectives of an ecosystems approach, and examples of projects already applying this method, whilst numerous web-links and upcoming activities offer an abundance of background information and practical guidance on the application of the approach.

The Ecosystems Knowledge Network is a resource for anyone wanting to share knowledge or learn about the ecosystems approach. It is being developed by an independent partnership involving the Natural Capital Initiative, the NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Fabis Consulting, the University of Exeter (Centre for Rural Policy Research) and Countryscape.

The website is due to be updated with additional learning materials and resources over the coming months and the Network team welcomes suggestions for additional resources.

A workshop which brought together economists and ecologists, and organised by the Natural Capital Initiative, took place yesterday at Charles Darwin House. The aim of the event was to facilitate conversation between experts of the two disciplines to discuss how to integrate the knowledge of the participants to inform decision making. The workshop focused on a case study of sustainable agriculture and attracted about 50 economists and ecologists altogether.

The event was chaired by Peter Costigan from Defra and started with a welcome note from the Chief Executive of NERC, Professor Duncan Wingham. To stimulate discussion, the morning continued with keynote presentations focusing on methods of incentivising farmers to adopt environmentally sustainable agricultural practices; Professor William Sutherland of the University of Cambridge provided the ecological perspective, and Professor Ian Bateman of the University of East Anglia gave the economists’ point of view. This was followed by a discussion involving a panel consisting of Mr Costigan, Prof Sutherland and Prof Bateman, as well as Prof Tim Benton of the University of Leeds, Dr. Salvatore Di Falco of the London School of Economics, Prof Charles Godfray of the University of Oxford, and Dr Paul Morling of the RSPB. Members of the panel each gave their ideas of the key issues which need to be addressed in order to facilitate progress towards sustainable agriculture in the UK, and, after questions and comments from the audience, these were summarised into a list to inform the afternoon’s break-out sessions.

After lunch and a chance to network, the audience was split up to 6 groups and each of the groups had to focus on one key issue to develop further, proposing activities which could be undertaken to explore or resolve this issue. Some interesting proposals came from these group discussions:

Issue 1: What is the best way to spend pillar II funds?
Proposal: This proposal aimed at bringing together ecological, economic and social knowledge to inform policy with the aim of reassessing the best way to spend CAP money to ensure farmers ‘do the right thing in the right place’.

Issue 2: How do we incentivise land managers to ‘do the right thing’ in the right place?
Proposal: Similarly to the first proposal, this group also focused on what management should be done where, but considered the issue from a different angle, suggesting that ecosystem services will be protected most effectively by combining top down and bottom up processes. A change to the structure of how funds are allocated to land managers were proposed, including a ‘bidding process’ and regional control of the ‘pot of money’.

Issue 3: Behaviour change to enhance resilience to shocks
Proposal: This group suggested a comprehensive study of farmer and consumer behaviour across different regions and farming types designed to identify the gap between desirable farm management and current behaviour and possible reasons for this. This would allow suitable incentives to be identified and employed.

Issue 4: Achieving a spatial balance of management activity on farmland
Proposal: This proposal aimed to change farmers’ behaviour by organising consultations and testing how land managers’ responded to different possible farming incentives.

Issue 5: ‘Better choice of choice’
Proposal: This group focused on product labeling and the possibility of integrating ecosystem services into existing certification schemes (e.g. Fairtrade, FSC, MSC).

Issue 6: Where do we need bees? A case study of spatial targeting of agriculture
Proposal: The final group’s idea was to better target agricultural incentives spatially by collecting existing knowledge, filling knowledge gaps and developing a GIS tool to help decision making for farmers. They demonstrated the idea through a case study on pollination services.

All of the proposals were strongly built on interdisciplinary or even intersectoral co-operation between ecologists, economists and other stakeholders. Four out of the six plans focused on spatial arrangements of agricultural incentives, suggesting that ecologists and economists alike think a critical problem with current initiatives lies in a lack of spatial planning and targeting of farmland management measures.

At the end of the workshop, the proposals were rated by participants based on their importance and feasibility. It was interesting to see that proposals which got more votes for importance generally got fewer votes for feasibility and vice versa. The winning scheme for importance was proposal 2, which focused on how to encourage farmers to “do the right thing in the right place”, whilst the most feasible proposal was voted to be proposal 6 on spatial planning with the case study on bees.

The feedback from participants was that it was a day of interesting and fruitful discussions, and hopefully some seeds of ideas for further research and co-operation between ecologists and economist were planted yesterday.

Additional information on the workshop and the full program can be downloaded from the workshop’s webpage.

The Royal Society yesterday published ‘People and the Planet‘, a report which marks the end of nearly two years of work by a group including both the British Ecological Society’s current President, Professor Georgina Mace FRS and a past-President of the Society, Professor Alastair Fitter FRS. Speaking to the Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme yesterday morning, Professor Mace warned that we are eroding the earth’s vital support systems through over-consumption and unfettered economic growth and that as a consequence we are not doing a very poor job of ‘gardening the planet’.

The study examines the links between global population and consumption and the implications for our finite planet. The aim of the report is to provide policy guidance to decision makers and to inform interested members of the public. Yesterday’s publication led to very interesting coverage on the Guardian’s environment blog, with members of the working group, including the group’s chair, Nobel Prize-winning geneticist Sir John Sulston FRS, commentators and others offering their views on the content. Some of those commenting contended that the scientists were too negative in their assessment and that economic growth should not always be viewed as having negative consequences for the environment. One suggestion was that economic growth means that natural resources such as timber could be replaced with man-made materials for development purposes, so reducing environmental degradation. Another was that economic growth means technological and scientific advances, with humanity thereby innovating our way out of a crisis.

Aside from any external comment on the project’s conclusions, the overriding message of the study is that we must examine population growth and consumption patterns together and that it is the combination of these two factors that has an effect on the planet. The human population is set to reach 10 billion people, from the current seven billion, by the middle of this century. Over 1.3 billion people currently live in abject poverty, on less than $1.25 per day. It is clearly not desirable to see a world in which both the population increases and inequalities are exacerbated. Inequality must be addressed, people must be lifted out of poverty, but as their wealth and living standards increase, so too will the consumption of resources. Reducing consumption whilst also reducing inequalities and ensuring that those in poverty achieve an adequate living standard is a dilemma, and one which seems intractable.

Yet, speaking to the Today Programme yesterday morning, Sir John Sulston described tackling these pressures on the planet, what he characterised as ‘planning to flourish’, as ‘very simple’. Echoing the conclusions of the report he stated that we need to ‘dematerialise’ our economy, for example by investing in zero carbon forms of energy and by moving beyond GDP as a measure of economic growth to price in natural capital. In addition, tackling population growth will require countries to work together constructively, rather than the developed somehow lecturing the developing world in how to address birth rates. Contraception should be made available to those who want it in Africa, where two thirds of the anticipated growth in population is projected to occur, for example, but representatives of some African nations, such as Kenya, are requesting this, rather than this being imposed from outside.

Top priority is afforded to lifting people out of poverty, in the report’s conclusions. The international community is urged to address inequality through investment in education, family planning and economic development. The other recommendations are (to paraphrase):

- Most developed and developing economies must stabilise and reduce material consumption levels (de-coupling economic growth from environmental impacts and improving the efficiency of resource use, for example);
- Reproductive health and voluntary family planning programmes should be supported by political leadership and financial commitments;
- Population and the environment should not be considered separately. Demographic changes should be factored in to Rio +20 negotiations, for example;
- Governments should invest appropriately in urbanisation, for example supporting waste collection, which has the potential to reduce environmental impacts through allowing resource efficiencies;
- High quality primary and secondary education should be available for all young people;
- Governments should accelerate the development of a comprehensive wealth measure, including improving national natural asset accounting;
- Governments should collaborate to develop socio-economic systems and institutions not dependent on continued material consumption.

Natural and social scientists have an important role to play. The seventh recommendation calls for scientists to increase their research into the interactions between consumption, demographic changes and environmental impacts, providing policy-makers with the information they require in order to ensure that both the planet and the human population under pressure can continue not only to survive but also to thrive.

The Natural Environment Research Council are funding a number of short projects / internships on ‘Business Engagement with Natural Capital and Ecosystem Services’.

The aims of the NERC-funded scheme are to
• Initiate collaborations between academics and business or third sector organisation partners, leading to the application of ecosystem services approaches in longer term self-sustaining activities undertaken by partners.
• Generate evidence and case studies of how businesses and other organisations have used or could use ecosystem services approaches, in collaboration with academics, to introduce innovation into their business.
• Provide evidence concerning the effectiveness of policies intended to facilitate the development of ecosystem services approaches by businesses and third sector organisations.

i) if you are a UK-based academic, please let your colleagues know of the opportunity and think about applying – full details of the call and the application form are available here.

ii) if you are a UK-based business and have an idea for a project that you would like to develop, then please use the discussion area on the webgroup forum to advertise / develop your collaborative ideas: click here
iii) project with Atkins
One business is already interested in the scheme – Atkins, one of the world’s leading engineering and design consultancies, is offering a project related to their work on the Water Framework Directive. For more details see here.

Further specific opportunities over the next few weeks as these are put forward by the business members of the network.

More information and to apply
The call is managed by the Environmental Sustainability Knowledge Transfer Network, on behalf of Natural Environment Research Council.
For more information contact the Environmental Sustainability Knowledge Transfer Network Administrator, Anna Baginska on anna.baginska@esktn.org or phone 01865 610505.

Deadline The call is now open, deadline is Friday 15 June 2012.

A recently published review paper in Nature draws attention to the dangers of globalisation and international trade which facilitate spreading of fungal diseases. The authors collected data from all over the world and showed that fungal infections had increased, caused extinction of several species and even contributed to climate change in the last few decades. They claim that immediate action is needed to prevent devastating impacts of the spreading of fungal diseases mainly by more research and better implementation of science into policy and practice.

The scientists looked at the problem holistically and pointed out some unusual links. They state for example that fungal diseases can contribute to climate change through killing or damaging trees that otherwise would have absorbed significant amount of CO2. They also highlight that biodiversity loss is accelerated by fungal pathogens. Due to small population effects and decreased ecosystem diversity, a fungal disease can wipe out entire species as it is seen in the case of amphibians. In case of animal species, fungal infections already account for 72% of infection-related extinctions which is more than viral and bacterial caused extinctions altogether.

Fungal pathogens can even facilitate invaders’ success. In the well known case of the North American signal crayfish in the UK a fungus-like disease (Crayfish Plague) helps the invader. The signal crayfish is tolerant to the infection which is lethal to the indigenous white-clawed crayfish. By spreading the disease around and wiping out the native crayfish the invader can occupy more and more habitats.

Food security is also in danger. Fungal infections of our five main food crops (rice, wheat, maize, potatoes and soybeans) are already causing serious problems and destroy a significant amount of the yield each year. Newly emerging fungal diseases can affect agriculture directly while new pathogens affecting animals can also have an indirect effect on crop production. Estimations suggest that White Nose Syndrome which decreases bat populations in North America can cause huge extra costs ($3.7 billion) to agriculture through the lack of bat control on insect pests.

The authors point out that human behaviour (international travel and trade) is the major cause of the recently recognised expansion of fungal diseases. Therefore, they call for stronger international biosecurity by strengthening international trade regulations, quarantining more rigorously and tackling illegal trade more effectively through trade control organisations. They also emphasise that integrated research on identifying, monitoring and mitigating the impacts of these diseases is much needed to get ahead of fungal epidemics.

For more on the subject, listen to the latest Planet Earth Online podcast.

The original paper: MC Fisher et al. Emerging fungal threats to animal, plant and ecosystem health. Nature, 12 April 2012. DOI 10.1038/nature10947

At the Natural Capital Initiative Steering Group meeting this morning we received a very interesting talk about GLOBE International’s work.

GLOBE International was founded in 1989 with the aim to tackle pressing environmental challenges through legislation by creating an international and cross-party platform for legislators. Since then they have been actively working on facilitating dialogue in four major policy themes: climate change, natural capital, forestry and marine environment.

GLOBE, together with ZSL, organised a side event on ‘Legislative approaches to recognising the value of biodiversity and natural capital’ at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) 10th Conference of Parties (COP10) in Nagoya in 2010. On that event they tried to find answers on why the 2010 Biodiversity targets were not met. One of the possible problems according to GLOBE was ‘the real missing link is the political leadership that is necessary to integrate these [natural capital] values into policy decisions at the local and national level’. Their Natural Capital Initiative and Action Plan, which was launched in Nagoya, tries to tackle this problem by suggesting the creation of Ministerial Natural Capital Committees to stream the Natural Capital approach into other policies. The UK took on this initiative and is setting up such a Committee at the moment.

This year GLOBE is focussing on another big challenge by organising the 1st World Summit of Legislators before the Rio + 20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development. This event will be attended by high profile experts and politicians. The goal of the meeting is to inform legislators about relevant issues. GLOBE is preparing a publication on different Natural Capital Approaches within the EU at the moment. The other important outcome of the Summit will be to ‘negotiate and agree a legislators’ protocol to be ratified in the legislatures of the participating parliaments’.
If GLOBE’s initiative succeeds we can expect strong outcomes of the Rio + 20 Conference.

To be held on 25th May 2012

UK uplands store 5.1 billion tonnes of carbon in their soils. Can we use management to support the ecosystem services of uplands and their existing carbon stocks – to benefit for our long-term national climate change strategy?

This meeting is a unique opportunity to engage with a range of key stakeholders, which will allow cooperative communication to direct future work in upland conservation and aid policy development.

The aims of the meeting are as follows:

1. To engage with a range of stakeholders with a collective interest in upland conservation
2. Discuss opportunities that exist for carbon storage in suitable upland habitats and the implications of a future elevated CO2 climate
3. Demonstrate the added value that management for soil carbon sequestration can offer in several types of upland habitats
4. Provide a forum to discuss future strategies and directions that will optimise management of upland areas to benefit their ecosystem services, including below-ground carbon storage and carbon capture potential

For further information and to register attendance, contact Dr Alan Jones.

The Institute of European Environmental Policy (IEEP) is recruiting for a permanent, full-time Biodiversity Policy Analyst, to be based in the Institute’s office in Brussels. The post-holder will work as part of a small team to inform the development of biodiversity policy and related matters by the European Commission, including the development of an ecosystem approach to policy-making.

Key tasks will include:

- Drafting reports led by yourself or others, which typically will focus on policy issues, at a European or national level;- Undertaking literature reviews, the analysis of quantitative and qualitative data, interviews, workshops and case studies;
-Assisting with, and in some cases leading the preparation of tenders and funding proposals;
-Playing a role in project development, management and administration;
-Providing regular briefing notes on developments in EU biodiversity policy and their implications;
-Working with colleagues to develop robust policy positions on behalf of the Institute;
-Promoting policy messages to wider audiences, beyond immediate client groups or sponsors, inter alia through contributing to the Institute’s communication, outreach and training activities. This will involve presentations to conferences and workshops;

For more about the role and for details of how to apply (closing date Monday 5th March) see the IEEP website.

Communities in Scotland could be encouraged to use a newly developed ‘toolkit’ to assign values to the local ecosystem services they depend on.

A summary report published by the Highland Council reveals plans for two initial pilot studies in the Highlands, taking place in April and July this year. Residents will be asked to consider the benefits they derive from their local environment and to assign a value to natural processes such as provision of food, soil enrichment and purification of air and water.

This new scheme signals a novel approach to ecosystem service valuation as, despite much interest in natural capital in both international and national policy, localised action has so far been relatively limited.

For more on valuing ecosystem service, see the Natural Capital Initiative webpage.

Over the past 40 years the EU has set up a relatively comprehensive and dense body of environmental legislation which, although far from perfect, is certainly a success story. Times are changing and increasing complexity of inter-linkages between policies on climate change, biodiversity and natural resources, coupled with financial and political volatility mean EU policy is likely to move in a new direction in the coming decade. That is the suggestion made by the recent report produced by the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP) and commissioned by the All Party Parliamentary Environment Group (APPEG). Here are some of the key areas of EU environmental policy that the IEEP has identified as being high on the agenda over the next few years.

Climate Change and Energy

Despite being among some of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the world, EU member states are also among the most active in seeking to address the issue. The Kyoto Protocol commits the EU-15 to reducing average GHG emissions by 8 per cent below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. In 2009 the EU implemented the 20-20-20 target, which aims to reduce GHG emission by 20 per cent, increase the share of renewable energy by 20 per cent and reduce energy consumption by 20 per cent, all by the year 2020. Progress towards these targets is mixed with the steady rise in the share of renewable energy sources in stark contrast to the energy saving estimates. A number of studies have demonstrated that more ambitious climate mitigation polices are needed in Europe which could modernise the EU economy and infrastructure, create jobs and enhance competitiveness in fast growing global markets for low-carbon goods and services.

Transport

Emissions from transport are a major source of the EU’s GHG emissions, in 2010 it accounted for more than a fifth of GHG emissions from the EU. Increasing demand has offset potential gains from improvements in the energy efficiency of new vehicles. Further impacts of transport include problems with poor air quality, noise and transport infrastructure also puts huge pressure on Europe’s ecosystems and biodiversity. Currently there is a major effort to promote the use of biofuels and accelerate the process of electrifying road vehicles, however, many challenges exist in ensuring that these alternative fuels and energy sources are sustainable and are in fact low carbon.

Water

The EU environmental policies regarding water pollution have improved freshwater quality for many of its member states, including the UK. There are, however, growing problems in relation to water quantity, in particular in the south of Europe. EU water policy provides a comprehensive legislative framework that aims to address issues related to water quality as well as water demand and availability. 2012 will be an important year for EU water policy with the current “fitness-check” being undertaken by the Commission.

Biodiversity

Despite the establishment of a European network of protected areas (Natura 2000) and wide ranging regulatory framework, biodiversity continues to decline. 2010 targets of halting biodiversity loss within the EU were not met, mainly due to continuing increases in key pressures such as intensification of agriculture and habitat fragmentation. Over the last few years there has been increasing recognition of the economic value of biodiversity and ecosystem services in the policy process. A new EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 was produced in 2011 which sets out six main targets relating to: full implementation of the birds and habitats Directives, maintaining and restoring ecosystems and their services, increasing the contribution of agriculture and forestry to maintaining and enhancing biodiversity, ensuring the sustainable use of fisheries resources, combating invasive alien species and helping to avert global biodiversity loss.