1.6 What are some weakness and drawbacks of the ecosystem services method?

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Ecosystem Services: a Method for Sustainable Development

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University of Geneva

Ecosystem Services: a Method for Sustainable Development

122 个评分

Ecosystem services are a way of thinking about – and evaluating – the goods and services provided by nature that contribute to the well-being of humans. This MOOC will cover scientific (technical), economic, and socio-political dimensions of the concept through a mix of theory, case-studies, interviews with specialists and a serious-game. By the end of this course, our aim is to enable you to: • define the concept of ecosystem services, its principles and limitations • understand the key services associated with any ressource (e.g., fresh water) through readings and case-studies • appreciate the advantages and potential risks of monetising ecosystem services • appreciate the social dimensions (power issues, cultural biases) embedded within any method • integrate tactical advice on mainstreaming this approach into policy and standard government practices • Optional: learn how to map ecosystem services with GIS tools The session that runs May 29th- July 10th will be actively monitored by the instructors, and learners will have the opportunity to ask questions. This course was developed by instructors from the University of Geneva with the help of numerous researchers and input from the Geneva Water Hub and the Natural Capital Project. The course was financed by the University of Geneva, the Global Programme Water Initiatives of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), and the Luc Hoffmann Institute. This MOOC is supported by the Geneva Water Hub and the University of Geneva along with the MOOC in « Water Resources Management and Policy » (www.coursera.org/learn/water-management) and the one in « International Water Law » (www.coursera.org/learn/droit-eau). We look forward to you joining us!

从本节课中

Module 1: Frontiers in Ecosystem Services

Play the TRADE-OFF game (online), meet the primary instructors of this course, and discover the key questions that we will be revisiting throughout this course in this introductory module.

1.1 Introduction to module 15:33

1.2.1 Trade-off game - Part A2:15

1.2.2 Trade-off game - Part B3:33

1.3 Introductory round table6:17

1.4 Why bother with the ecosystem services method?6:21

1.5 In what context can the ecosystem services method be used?10:59

1.6 What are some weakness and drawbacks of the ecosystem services method?6:20

与讲师见面

Martin Schlaepfer
Senior Lecturer
Institute of Environmental Sciences
Anthony Lehmann
Associate Professor
Section of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Institute for Environmental Sciences and
Juliet Jane Fall
Professor
Department of Geography and Environment, Geneva School of Social Sciences

[MUSIC]

So perhaps we'll start paradoxically by talking about one of

the best studies that was done using the ecosystem service method.

This was a study done in 2011.

Where the United Kingdom conducted a nationwide ecosystem assessment.

In my view, it was really a beautiful piece of work.

It's all freely available online, in the links below.

And they did everything right according to theory.

Including the development of scenarios,

where they projected the different services into the future.

And they were able to illustrate how,

by pursuing a strictly economic provisioning services, one generated

less overall well-being than alternative world views or

economic developments that put a greater emphasis on preserving and

conserving all ecosystem services.

Interestingly, 3 years later there was what they called a follow-on survey,

where they basically took stock of the progress that had been made

since the initial study.

And at least when I read it, between the lines,

I was able to infer that not much had changed,

neither in terms of policy, nor in terms of real changes on the ground.

So why is that?

Maybe this is one way in which one can start talking about the different

shortcomings of the method.

And I'll quickly say that these are my leading hypotheses, they're not

mutually exclusive, and other experts or you yourself may have different opinions.

So I would start by a hypothesis, of basically, called inertia.

Namely, maybe the method is great and it will be implemented eventually, but

because our different sociopolitical institutions have a lot of inertia built

into them, it just takes time for those results to come through.

Perhaps in 15 years we'll have a lot of these ideas that are turning into

practical changes.

A second one is there may be resistance to implementing some of these ideas because

there's a lack of legitimacy in those who produced the study.

Indeed, often in the past, these were done by small groups of scientists.

And we know today that if one wants to have a greater acceptance of the ideas

that even the instigation of the project, let alone the development of the scenarios

and the calculations and the different recommendations, should be done

collectively in what's called co-production and a co-learning scenario.

Thirdly, the approach does aim at improving sustainability and

ethics for future generations, and therefore the work paradigm

is also based on cooperation and constructive sharing of information.

We know that this doesn't necessarily match the reality where you can have

special interest groups who are defending their turf, but

you can also have phenomenon such as corruption that try and

bypass any decision even it aims at helping the greater good.

So currently the ecosystem services assessment doesn't have any real

mechanism for countering some of these entrenched positions.

Fourthly, there's sometimes is a mismatch and

scale between where services are produced and

where the beneficiaries, or the consumers of those services reside.

To use one common example that you'll see in any study, as soon as one talks

about trees or forests there usually is a line that tries to describe, quantify,

and perhaps even monetize the value of the carbon that's sequestrated and

therefore that doesn't accentuate future climate change.

The people who are in charge of planting, maintaining those trees are a subset

of the global citizens and of course as a political decider, I may not wish

to spend the extra resources on an action that's going to help the global good.

It must somehow convince that everyone's going to do this at the same

time together.

So finally, is perhaps the method is still,

even though it's presented as fairly straightforward,

it's reliant on a scientific knowledge that is still too complicated.

We're going to talk later about the difficulty in implementing and

mainstreaming these ideas, but even on the scientific side, everyone can understand

intuitively that there's a link between biodiversity and that's the foundation for

all the different services that ultimately feed into our well-being.

But the exact functional links are still sometimes so

tenuous that it can be difficult to convince somebody,

whether it's a politician or another fellow citizen that it's worthwhile

protecting this butterfly or this cohort of plants.

In addition to sort of the mechanistic complexity,

we have as soon as you enter into the worlds of evaluation and monetization,

huge uncertainties that are based on some decisions that have to be made.

How much is biodiversity worth intrinsically?

Values can go from $0 for some people to an infinite amount for others.

How much is a ton of carbon that's been sequestrated worth?

Again, commonly used values can go from $20 per metric ton per year

to $200 per year, and

this will have an enormous impact on your evaluation phase of a project.

Which, given that they're based on uncertainties that have no clear answer,

people may say, well how does this help us in the end,

given that the uncertainties around each scenario become so large?

So clearly there still are a lot of things that still need to be worked out in this

ecosystem service assessment.

And we've provided you with a few non-exclusive hypotheses

of things that are either shortcomings or that could be improved.

We'd be curious if you have other ideas of shortcomings, so please join the forums

and share succinctly what you think is a shortcoming of the system.

In the next sequence,

we're going to talk about the ecosystem service assessment in a broader context.

What is the length between this approach and biodiversity protection and

sustainable development?

[MUSIC]

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