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...