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.

Sense About Science will be holding a Standing up for Science media workshop at Charles Darwin House (headquarters of the British Ecological Society) in London on Friday 15th June. This full day event is free and for early career researchers in all life, medical and bioengineering sciences (PhD students, post-docs or equivalent in first job).

During the workshop Sense about Science combine discussion about science-related controversies in media reporting with practical guidance and tips for how to deal with the media. Please find further information at http://www.senseaboutscience.org/data/files/VoYS_Workshop_SOB_15th_Jun_2012.pdf
These workshops are very popular and places are limited. To apply send a CV and cover letter explaining your reasons for applying to Victoria Murphy. If you are a member of a Sense about Science sponsor organisation, please state in your application – sponsors hold five priority places.

Closing date for applications is Friday 1st June.

Europe is not doing enough to prepare itself for an uncertain future for the continent’s water sources, according to a report published by the Lords Select Committee today.

The report, An Indispensable Resource: EU Freshwater Policy, is timely, as the UK continues to suffer the worst drought since 1976, and areas throughout Europe are feeling the effects of a signfiicant lack of rain.

In it, the Committee calls for urgent action to safeguard the quality and long-term availability of the UK’s water sources, and recommends that all EU Member States should be required to develop national water scarcity and drought management plans. It warns that the UK Government’s current schedule for reforming water abstraction regulations fails to respond to the urgency of the situation; despite acknowledging that 10% of rivers are already abstracted to an extent that may damage water ecosystems, the government has set the target of the mid to late 2020s to begin reforming the regime. The Committee warns that this may be too late.

Other recommendations in the report include a push for the government and European Commission to strongly promote catchment level governance in the Blueprint for Europe’s water resources, due to be published later this year. This will require a much greater emphasis on engaging local stakeholders – such as river trusts, farmers and anglers – in decisions relating to river catchment issues, in order to reconnect people with the value of water. Already, the UK government has expressed support for a number of ‘catchment management’ pilot schemes, and Defra has a launched a ‘Love your River’ campaign aimed at raising awareness of the importance of healthy river systems.

The report also contains a warning for the government that where other solutions to water scarcity have failed, the potentially unpopular choice to raise water prices may have to be taken. As Chair of the Committee, Lord Carter of Coles says “Governments…need to act decisively, and grasp the nettle of allowing the cost of water to rise”. However, he suggests that commitment by the government to a programme of publc and stakeholder engagment will help ease the introduction of this necessary price rise, as people gain a better understanding of what they are paying extra for.

The report is the outcome of an inquiry by the Committee into EU Freshwater Policy.

Defra together with the Northern Ireland Executive, the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government launched the consultation on the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) in March. One and a half months are left to submit thoughts on the implementation of the Directive till the end of the consultation on 18th June.

The main goal of MSFD is to achieve and maintain Good Environmental Status (GES) of all EU seas by the end of the decade. GES means that marine ecosystems are protected, restored and their degradation is prevented while used sustainably. The Directive includes 11 descriptors of GES covering a wide-range of aspects from biodiversity through food webs to underwater noise.

Current consultation aims to draft an initial assessment of the state of the UK’s seas, customise general GES criteria to UK seas and propose more detailed measures and indicators of GES. There will be further consultations on measures and monitoring of achieving GES of UK marine environments.

Consultation materials and information on how to take part can be found on the Defra webpage.

A new project to develop a series of ‘Climate Change Impacts Report Cards’ for the terrestrial and freshwater environments has started under the Living With Environmental Change programme, supported by Defra and NERC.

These report cards will be accessible, high level summaries of the science, based on more detailed supporting papers, with thorough peer review of both the supporting papers and the report card itself. The audience includes policy makers, business and a wide range of other stakeholders, as well as the research community. The concept is based on the very successful report cards produced by the Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership for the marine environment.

Two cards are currently being developed, one on water issues and one on biodiversity. The development of the biodiversity card is being led by Mike Morecroft and Lydia Speakman at Natural England: if you are interested in getting involved, or would like to know more, please email Lydia.Speakman@naturalengland.org.uk.

The UK Government’s new Bioenergy Strategy released last week aims to accelerate the use of renewable energy generated sustainably from biomass. Bioenergy is stated in the strategy as ‘one of the most versatile forms of low carbon and renewable energy’ and is proposed to be used for heating, electricity and transport fuel.

The Government’s overall goal is to meet the renewables target by 2020 and the carbon reduction targets by 2030 and 2050. To achieve this, the focus has to be on new technologies (e.g. wind, solar) and biomass energy as well. The strategy predicts that 11 per cent of all UK energy will come from biomass by 2020. This number can be achieved sustainably using domestic and international biomass resources and be sustained in the long term in spite of the expected emergence of international demand for biomass feedstock.

The Government also recognise the risks of bioenergy, emphasised by many green organisations. To address the concerns (e.g. food security, biodiversity) the Government states that sustainability and affordability are the highest importance and the strategy sets a framework of principles to guide UK bioenergy policy in the future. Amongst others the principles state that the biomass used for bioenergy has to deliver genuine carbon reductions over its full lifecycle and future bioenergy policies must assess risks to food security and biodiversity.

Alongside the strategy the government released several reports on issues relevant to or affected by the proposed bioenergy strategy. For instance, a report on the UK jobs in the sector highlights that increased use of bioenergy would create around 50,000 jobs by 2020. Analyses on the bioenergy feedstock suggest that the amount of waste going to landfill at the moment would decrease by using it for bioenergy.

The Government used a holistic approach in preparing this strategy but did not seek to answer all the questions about the issue. One thing is perfectly clear though that the Government wants sustainable and affordable bioenergy to be an integral part of UK’s energy production in the future.

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.

Yesterday’s meeting of the Cross Party House of Common’s Agroecology Group discussed the potential for soil management practices to influence the future of farming in the UK. The session was chaired by Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer and co- hosted by the Food Ethics Council.

Professor Mark Kibblewhite, Chair of Soil Science at Cranfield University, kicked off the session by scene setting the romantic attachment we have with soils – the smell of light rain on dry earth on a warm summer’s evening and then the reality that this smell is the result of a chemical secreted by soil organisms. He then went on to explain how the biological engine of the earth (the soil biology) utilising carbon as its fuel source drives key ecosystem functioning. But this vital resource is under threat with 25% of soils globally showing signs of significant degradation while the increasing pressure of food production and climate change will shrink these soil resources further. Soil contains some 2,500 gigatonnes of carbon which is 3 times that of the biogenic carbon in the atmosphere and yet currently the Government has no published soil strategy in place and is part of a minority group that is blocking the proposed European Soil Framework Directive. Professor Kibblewhite called on the UK Government to work progressively to adopt the EU framework and positively influence Europe in the interests of our own food security. He also identified the progressive sealing of soils through urbanisation as a major threat. The recently published much condensed draft National Planning Policy Framework makes little specific mention of the protection of soils for the delivery of food and other ecosystem services.

Dr Charlie Clutterbuck of the Food Ethics Council discussed the decline in the study and practice of agricultural sciences in the UK and the disconnect between consumer and supply.

Peter Melchett of the Soil Association drew the formal meeting to a close discussing the need to further our research base and understanding of soil processes in relation to management techniques. This is so that soil scientists can provide practical advice for land managers and not assume that this knowledge is built in to the system. He highlighted that the treatment of soils post war has been input driven and that now was the time to look at alternatives. He heavily supported the need for EU-level soil framework legislation.

This meeting was attended by MPs, NGOs and agronomic advisers along with Dr Kathryn Allton, Executive Officer and Mr Dick Thompson, Governance Trustee, of the British Society of Soil Science.

Blog post by Dr Kathryn Allton, Executive Officer, British Society of Soil Science

Following the publication last month of new research showing a link between the use of common neonicotinoid insecticides and bee mortality, the European Ombundsman, P. Nikiforos Diamandouros has launched an investigation into whether the European Commission has taken sufficient account of new scientific evidence on insecticide use, and appropriate measures to combat bee population declines.

The review was requested by the Austrian Ombundsman Board which stated that the Commission has not followed regulations which require a review of the authorisation of substances in the event that new scientific evidence suggests that they no longer meet approval criteria.

The continued use of neonicotinoid insecticides was permitted by the Commission in 2011, when it stated that it was aware of the toxicity of the substances, but argued that their use should be possible if exposure is limited to non-harmful levels. However, new research – including a study published in Science last month by a team at the University of Stirling, and summarised in an earlier Blog post – suggests that even very low levels of the substances have signficant detrimental effects on bee colonies.

More information about the inquiry is available on the European Ombundsman website.

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.