Download science informing policy symposium series from the sublime to the

SCIENCE INFORMING POLICY SYMPOSIUM SERIES
FROM THE SUBLIME TO THE BOTTOM LINE
ECOSYSTEM SERVICES & PROTECTED AREAS: AUSTRALIAN
AND REGIONAL PERSPECTIVES
21-22 July 2014,
The Shore Function Centre, South Bank, Brisbane
You are warmly invited - Please reserve the dates
This is the fifth in the ‘Science informing Policy Symposium Series’ convened by the
Australian National Committee for IUCN. This symposium is in partnership with Griffith
University (Climate Change Response Program), Parks Victoria, The Nature
Conservancy, the Australian Conservation Foundation and the IUCN Oceania
Regional Office.
Background
Throughout the world terrestrial, marine, coastal, and inland water ecosystems
deliver many benefits or ‘services’ that underpin human livelihoods, economies and
well-being. However, these ecosystems, and the wealth of life they support, are
declining at an unprecedented rate. To address this challenge requires sound
policy at local, national and international levels.
Often such natural landscapes - and the wildlife and ecosystems they contain are
seen through a narrow economic lens focused on conventional means of valuation
through monetary return such as tourism, mining, logging, agriculture, and
infrastructure development.
In partnership with:
If we broaden our perspective, however, we can gain a richer appreciation of the
full range of benefits we gain from intact nature, often best protected in our national
parks and other protected areas, benefits which economists are now calling
“ecosystem services”.
Ecosystem services include such benefits as fresh water, erosion prevention,
pollination, nature based tourism, flood mitigation and climate change mitigation
and adaptation. However, more broadly the concept encompasses the
contribution of protected areas to human health and well-being (both mental and
physical). Nature also generates profound aesthetic, inspirational and cultural values
including Indigenous knowledge and practices.
The ecosystem services approach - done properly - can provide vital information for
policy and decision makers in the face of increasing pressures and stressors on our
protected areas and emerging threats such as climate change. Underlying the
provision of ecosystem services is the concept of “green infrastructure” – the native
species, ecological communities and biophysical processes that constitute and
sustain natural ecosystems. Healthy, well-managed protected areas are significant
reservoirs of this green infrastructure and therefore vital national assets.
Undervaluation will, in contrast, lead to serious, and often permanent, degradation
and losses.
Proper valuation of ecosystems has been recognised as a global priority. This is
reflected at international level by the establishment by the United Nations of the
Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). IPBES has
been established to be the leading intergovernmental body for assessing the state
of the planet's biodiversity, its ecosystems and the essential services they provide to
society (http://www.ipbes.net/).
Other international and national activities providing impetus for advancing
understanding of the ecosystem services include:
The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) initiative
(http://www.teebweb.org/ );
U.N. Statistics Division’s work on Experimental Ecosystem Accounts (SEEA) which
produces internationally comparable statistics on the environment and its
relationship with the economy;
The Australia Bureau of Statistics program of environmental-economic accounts:
Well documented case studies of protected area valuation in countries such as
Canada;
Promotion through the U.N. system of the “green” and “blue” economies
(http://www.unep.org/greeneconomy/); and
Increasing political pressure for further justification of ongoing public and private
funding of protected areas.
Purpose
The partners of this symposium wish to catalyse interest in, and understanding of, the
ecosystem services approach to accounting for and valuing the benefits of intact
In partnership with:
natural systems including forests, wetlands, woodlands, grasslands, rivers and flood
plains, alpine meadows, and rainforests.
Decision makers need science-based and independent information that highlights
the relationships between biodiversity, ecosystem services, people and appropriate
management and governance mechanisms.
The symposium will look particularly at how protected areas, as our most effective
mechanism to protect these natural attributes, deliver benefits and how these can
be accounted for and valued. It will also address how intact nature holds strong
cultural, health and well-being values which people cherish and seek to secure and
pass on to future generations.
In examining how we can account for and value the full range of ecosystem
services from protected areas the symposium will provide critical information for a
range of policy questions and management decision making and encourage more
comprehensive approaches to the valuation of protected areas.
Audience
The symposium aims to bring together biodiversity, environmental economics and
protected area specialists from government, non-government and academic
sectors and particularly target decision makers at national and state levels. It also
aims to include the voices of sectors who benefit from ecosystems services such as
the Indigenous community, rural land holders such as floodplain farmers, local
governments, the tourism industry and importantly those who are exploring the
important connections between nature and human health and well-being.
Outputs
A report will be published by ACIUCN that documents the main ideas, cases studies
and recommendations emerging from the symposium on national priorities for
accounting and valuation of nature and protected areas for the next decade. The
symposium outcomes will also feed into the IUCN World Parks Congress being held in
Sydney, November 2014. Speakers will be required to submit summaries in July.
Register for information updates
Please register your interest in this Symposium by accessing the ACIUCN website
and filling in contact information on the event registration site. We will keep you
updated as the program develops and advise you when formal registration is open.
Register here. http://aciucn.org.au/index.php/ecosystemssymposium/
Contacts
The key contacts for the Symposium will be ACIUCN Director, Penelope Figgis AO
and Prof. Brendan Mackey (please note that Ms Figgis is absent overseas until the
18th April). Kathy Zischka can be contacted over any problems with registration.
[email protected] [email protected]
[email protected])
In partnership with: