Coverage of the Ecosystem Services Partnership Conference - July 31

Genevieve Bennett on August 1, 2012 Comment

Practitioners, policy-makers, researchers, and educators in the ecosystem services field have arrived from all over the world (47 countries if you're counting) in Portland, Oregon for the 5th Annual Ecosystem Services Partnership Conference. Ecosystem Marketplace's Genevieve Bennett is live-blogging the conference.

July 31, 2012 - Morning

The opening plenary this morning was given by Bob Costanza, of Portland State University, and Dolf de Groot of Waginengen University, welcoming attendees to the conference. Costanza spoke about ecosystem services' growing profile in scholarship. He also showed a few fascinating slides illustrating the complex networks of co-authorship around the world in published research on ecosystem services. The slides draw on an Ecosystem Services journal paper currently in press but you can view them here.

De Groot in turn discussed the Ecosystem Service Partnership's work supporting a network of practitioners and researchers, data and knowledge-sharing initiatives, and network of learning sites.
A keynote address by Hal Mooney tracked the long, long journey to the creation of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), which launched this past April. IPBES aims to provide a platform and structure for advancing biodiversity science, to better inform biodiversity policy.

Next, Glenn-Marie Lange, Program Manager of the Wealth Accounting and Valuation of Ecosystem Services (WAVES) Partnership for the World Bank took the platform. Her address noted the value of natural capital accounting as a tool for monitoring and directing sustainable development, and discussed the partnership's work implementing SEEA (System of Environmental-Economic Accounts, a satellite accounting system to the internationally-used System of National Accounts) standards and piloting SEEA ecosystem accounts. Pilots are underway this year in Botswana and Madagascar, and in planning for Costa Rica, Colombia, and the Philippines. The WAVES Partnership is also supporting uptake of natural capital accounting by national governments and the private sector via the 50/50 campaign to build momentum behind the Communiqué on Natural Capital Accounting.

I'm told that videos of all these addresses will be posted shortly on the ESP conference website; we'll keep you updated.