Policies For Sustainable Governance Of Global Ecosystem Services

This book provides a compilation of policy, institutional and governance recommendations from eighteen leading international experts, in response to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) finding that over the last 50 years humans have degraded ecosystems services at a faster rate and on a larger scale than at any time in human history. The MEA provided the most comprehensive examination ever undertaken of the conditions and trends of ecosystems.

By design, the MEA stopped short of prescribing policy recommendations. With this in mind, the international contributors have been drawn from diverse backgrounds to review the MEA findings and define a global action agenda for governments, businesses, international organizations, civil society, and research organizations. The book encompasses recommendations on a local, national and global scale.

Policies for Sustainable Governance of Global Ecosystem Services:

• proposes an action agenda for integrating ecosystem considerations into development decisions
• focuses on ecosystem services as the benefits people receive from nature
• seeks to change the focus from how to protect ecosystems from development to how to invest in ecosystems for development
• represents earliest thinking on a global action agenda for reversing ecosystem degradation and promoting more robust development.

This book is aimed at professionals, academics and researchers working in the environmental and development fields including advanced undergraduates and graduates of environmental, ecosystem and development studies. It will also be of great value to civil society organizations and environmental research organizations as well as policymakers themselves and the interested lay reader.

Contents:

Editor’s Introduction

Action Agenda for Sustaining Ecosystem Services
Frances Irwin and Janet Ranganathan

PART I: INCORPORATING ECOSYSTEM SERVICES INTO DEVELOPMENT PLANNING AND PRACTICE
1. Mainstreaming and Implementing the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Results by Integrating them into Sustainable Development Strategy: Applying the Action Impact Matrix Methodology
Mohan Munasinghe

2. Development, Ecosystems and Governance: What are the Priorities for Policy Makers?
Antonio La Vina

3. To Change Global Change: Ecosystem Transformation and Conflict in the 21st Century
Nicolás J. Lucas, Iokiñe Rodriguez and Hernán Darío Correa

4. Putting the Assessment into Action: Six Steps for Governments
Lailai Li

5. From Assessment to Action: Operationalizing Environmental Sustainability at the National Level
Guido Schmidt-Traub and Albert Cho

6. Environmental Policy Priorities for the World Bank
Robert Goodland

PART II: USING NEW TOOLS AND SKILLS
7. A Scenarios Approach to Developing Ecosystem Management Strategies
Mark E. Bateman

8. The Implications of Interdisciplinary Scientific Assessments for Environmental Governance
Richard B. Norgaard

9. Looking Back and Ahead in Ecosystems: Reflections on the Lessons of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Anthony C. Janetos

10. Policy Actions to Help Move Us Towards Ecosystem Security
Karin M. Krchnak

11. Framing the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Messages for Political Resonance
Frances Seymour

PART III: BUILDING INSTITUTIONS TO SUSTAIN ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
12. Meeting the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Challenge: The Case for Biome Stewardship Councils
Sudhir Chella Rajan

13. Smart Globalization: Opportunities for Business, Scientific and Political Leadership
David Jhirad

14. A Commission to Spur Investments in Ecosystem Services for the Poor
Frances Irwin

Index