The Nature Conservancy - Assessing Opportunities for Ecosystem Service

Assessing Opportunities for Ecosystem Service-based Conservation Strategies

Because ecosystem services is such a new, emerging strategy for nature protection, those working on-the-ground to conserve and restore rivers often are unsure whether this concept is right for their work. That’s why the Great Rivers Center for Conservation and Learning has drafted a guide — Assessing Opportunities for Ecosystem Service-based Conservation Strategies. It sets out a framework for evaluating ecosystem service-based approaches, highlighting key assessment steps and issues.

“As an approach, ecosystem services is receiving a lot of attention because it links the needs of nature and humanity. When I first joined the center’s staff, a lot of people involved in site conservation work asked me whether or not they could incorporate ecosystem services into their projects. Most people knew what services their project areas produced but were wondering about where they should go from there,” said Bruce McKenney, the partnership’s ecosystems services director, about the reason why the center created this document.

Still in draft phase, Assessing Opportunities for Ecosystem Service-based Conservation Strategies is being vetted by a group of experts and by conservation professionals working at project sites. It is available now for download (pdf).

The document outlines 12 steps for assessing the potential for an ecosystem services approach to support conservation. It asks managers to assess the overlap between ecosystem services and biological diversity, and to evaluate certain conditions, such as policy and stakeholder context, economic values of services, scale and timing issues and risks. Where these conditions are favorable, a more comprehensive feasibility study may be warranted.

Approaching conservation this way is complex, though it potentially has tremendous rewards. It requires project managers, often steeped in land management and ecological issues, to delve into the realm of economics, policy and market dynamics. But, with dwindling funding for conservation and land protection efforts, those in the conservation community have started looking for new streams of revenue. This move has coincided with a shift in industry’s thinking as well. Businesses are looking beyond traditional solutions to determine more effective ways of achieving their environmental stewardship goals while also addressing public concerns about issues such as water quality and global climate change.

Ecosystem services offer a potential avenue for increasing both public support and funding for conservation. The Great Rivers Center is supporting projects that address conservation priorities, while also providing significant ecosystem service benefits, including clean water, carbon sequestration to mitigate climate change, sustainable timber harvests, recreation and flood storage. Existing and emerging markets for these services can play a tremendous role in supporting watershed and floodplain restoration in some of the most biologically rich river basins of the world. It’s because this approach holds such great promise that the Great Rivers Center is invested in developing and supporting strategies that allow it to flourish.

TNC employee survey Spunky Bottoms in Illinois

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