Overview of Valuing Nature Network Peatland Project (Mark Reed)
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Transcript of Overview of Valuing Nature Network Peatland Project (Mark Reed)
Assessing and
valuing peatland ecosystem services for sustainable management
Why do we need this project?
• Society doesn’t pay for many of the benefits we take for granted from nature
Why do we need this project?
• To pay for nature’s services we need to:
– Quantify stocks & flows of benefits from nature
– Understand how these stocks and flows are influenced by different ecosystem/other processes
– Understand how the way we manage the land affects these processes, stocks &flows of benefits
– Understand land manager motives/barriers
Why do we need this project?
• Social-ecological systems are complex:
– Multiple services
– Services that interact & change over space & time
– Different & changing values/priorities...
• How do you get land managers to prioritise societal benefits?
Why do we need this project?
• Interest in Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES):
– DEFRA’s Natural Environment White Paper & Scottish Government’s Land Use Strategy
– Currently developing PES best practice guidance for DEFRA (let me know if you want to help)
Why peatlands?
Why peatlands?
• A complex social-ecological system in which to develop new insights/methods to value nature and better manage the environment
• Opportunity to develop concrete policy contributions from our work
• The insights/methods that emerge must be applicable to a wide range of ecological, policy & business settings
Challenges for Valuing Nature
(1) How can the complexity of socio-ecological systems be incorporated into valuations of biodiversity, ecosystem services and natural resource use?
(2) How can stock sustainability be incorporated within valuations of biodiversity, ecosystem services and natural resource use?
(3) How can issues of scale be incorporated within valuations of biodiversity, ecosystem services and natural resource use?
(4) How do we integrate information on values obtained from the natural sciences, economics and other social sciences into governance & so improve decision making and how can such improved decisions be implemented effectively?
Aim 1a (VNN challenges 1-3; WPs 1 & 2)
• Identify options for valuing changes to stocks and flows of multiple ecosystem services in complex socio- ecological systems using both monetary & non- monetary approaches
Aim 1b (VNN challenges 3 and 4; WPs 3 & 4)
• Consider how this information might affect the design of financial mechanisms to lever investment in the provision of climate mitigation & adaptation (including developing a roadmap for a UK Peatland Carbon Code)
Aim 2 (VNN challenge 4; WP4)
• Develop a peatland hub in which researchers and members of the practitioner and policy community can effectively communicate and work together to better understand the value of peatlands & manage them more sustainably
Timetable Dates
(2012)
Activity
18-19 Jan First project workshop
Feb-April Report writing
May Reducing the cost of the WFD through Payments
for Water Services (with water@leeds)
May Second project workshop (1 day) to review
progress and address specific report writing
issues
June Open workshop at IUCN/BES conference
‘Investing in Peatlands: Demonstrating Success’
November Final report submitted
Planned outputs
Type of output Details
VNN Project Report Synthesis report and concept note for full research programme for phase 2
VNN
Papers in peer-
reviewed
international
journals
The following is an indicative list:
Review paper of relationships between biodiversity, environmental processes
and the delivery of ecosystem services, goods and value in UK peatlands
Review paper on peatland greenhouse gas accounting and carbon markets
Review paper on economic and non-monetary mechanisms that may promote
cross-boundary collaboration between land managers for ecosystem service
management
Viewpoints piece for Land Use Policy on regulatory frameworks for Payments for
Ecosystem Services in peatlands
Policy briefings Policy brief 1: Policy options for continuing to provide multiple ecosystem
services from UK peatlands through Payments for Ecosystem Services
Policy brief 2: Peatland GHG accounting and carbon markets – a national and
global perspective
Planned outputs
Applied Output:
Development
toward peatland
carbon code
• Link with existing initiatives (IPCC, VCS, DECC, Defra etc), learn from forestry and
peatland demonstration sites internationally
• Develop a road map for establishing peatland ecosystem service markets with
carbon as a key service and identify innovative financing mechanisms as well as
steps towards regulatory framework
Water industry workshop
To be held in May with water@leeds – see flyer
Presentations Presentation and meetings with relevant policy teams in DEFRA and DECC
International academic conference presentations
Other Project findings will feed into ongoing research projects and policy processes e.g.
DEFRA’s PES best practice guidelines, St George’s House Consultation on the Future
of the Uplands, NERC’s Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services & Sustainability
programme...