The Nature Conservancy - Handbook on Ecosystem Services

Ecosystem Services

Handbook to be Released Summer 2007

More and more, economists, developers and others realize natural systems provide services, often called ecosystem services by scientists. This includes such “free” things as clean water to drink, along with other resources that are used to support industry, such as trees for timber and paper. But, with this realization, many have wondered how they should incorporate ecosystem services into their economic and development decisions.

A new guide being developed by non-profit, governmental and academic groups hopes to provide that information in order to encourage public sector decision makers to incorporate ecosystem services into their policies and actions. The guide — Integrating Ecosystem Services into Economic and Development Decisions: A Guide for the Perplexed — will outline why and how to use information on ecosystem services, drawing on examples from a variety of economic and development decisions.

The guide will not be a detailed “how to” on ecosystem assessments. A separate, but complimentary methods manual is being developed by United Nations Environment Program – World Conservation Monitoring Centre for this purpose. Instead, the guide will help facilitate the integration of ecosystem service considerations in economic and development strategies; provide additional information to supplement environmental impact assessments of large infrastructure projects; and help ecosystem-focused initiatives make relevant links to the attainment of social, economic and development goals.

World Resources Institute is leading up the guide's development and also is engaging target users in the design and development phases to help ensure that it fits its purpose. The guide is being prepared by staff from the former Millennium Ecosystem Assessment secretariat, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, The Nature Conservancy, UNEP, UNEP-WCMC and McGill University.

Specifically, the guide will:

• increase decision makers' understanding of the inter-linkages between the capacity of ecosystems to supply services and the attainment of social, economic and development goals;

• demonstrate how the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment conceptual framework can be used to strengthen a variety of decision making processes that affect or are affected by the supply of ecosystem services;

• raise awareness about decision making tools for identifying, quantifying and managing trade-offs among ecosystem and illustrate how they have been used in a variety of contexts; and

• increase demand for information on ecosystem services.

For more information, contact Janet Ranganathan and Karen Bennett at WRI.

Water intake system at the water purification plant that supplies fifty percent of Sao Paulo's drink

Water intake system at the water purification plant that supplies fifty percent of Sao Paulo's drinking water. ©Scott Warren

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