Symposium on TEEB Nagoya, 27 th August, 2010 The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity: Report for Local and Regional Policy Haripriya Gundimeda (IIT Bombay) Co-Coordinator TEEB D2 Core Team • Coordinators – Heidi Wittmer, Haripriya Gundimeda • Core Team - Alice Ruhweza (Katoomba Group), • Elisa Calcaterra (IUCN), • Augustin Berghöfer (UFZ), • Nigel Dudley (Equilibrium Research), • Salman Hussain (Scottish Agricultural College – SAC), • Holger Robrecht (ICLEI), • Ben Simmons/Ahmad Ghosn (UNEP), • Simron Singh (Institute of Social Ecology Vienna), • Anne Teller (European Commission), • Frank Wätzold (University of Greifswald)
Transcript
Symposium on TEEB Nagoya, 27th August, 2010
The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity:
Report for Local and Regional Policy
Haripriya Gundimeda (IIT Bombay)
Co-Coordinator TEEB D2
Core Team• Coordinators – Heidi Wittmer, Haripriya Gundimeda• Core Team - Alice Ruhweza (Katoomba Group), • Elisa Calcaterra (IUCN), • Augustin Berghöfer (UFZ), • Nigel Dudley (Equilibrium Research), • Salman Hussain (Scottish Agricultural College – SAC), • Holger Robrecht (ICLEI), • Ben Simmons/Ahmad Ghosn (UNEP), • Simron Singh (Institute of Social Ecology Vienna), • Anne Teller (European Commission), • Frank Wätzold (University of Greifswald)
TEEB D2 How can an ‘ecosystem services perspective’
help improve biodiversity-related decisions at local/regional policy levels?
• A source of inspiration for conserving biodiversity by considering ecosystem services: telling examples from around the world.
• An overview of approaches and instruments for assessing and valuing ecosystem services, for various tasks and in different contexts.
• An aid to orientation on the potential, requirements and caveats, with regard to locally applying assessment and valuation instruments.
Report in three versions�Volume 1 – This Report (210 pages)
(Translated into all major languages)
�Volume II – TEEB Cases on the web
�Version III – Book to be published by EarthScan
Structure of the ReportPart I – Value of Nature for Local DevelopmentPart II - The Tools – Appraising Ecosystem Services2. Conceptual Frameworks for Considering the Benefits of Nature.3 - Tools for Valuation and Appraisal of Ecosystem Services in Policy
Making .Part III – The Practice: Ecosystem Services in Policy and
Management4: Ecosystem Services in Cities and Public Management..5: Ecosystems Services in Rural Areas and Natural Resource Management6: Spatial Planning and Environmental Assessments.7: Ecosystem Services and Protected Areas.8: Payments for Ecosystem Services and Conservation Banking .. 9: Certification and Labelling..Part IV – The Lessons: How to Make it Happen (Chapter 10)
Who could benefit from this report?�Local authority, member of a city council, (Chapters 4 to 9)�Decision maker (Chapters 2, 3 and 10). �Regulating authority – (Chapter 4, 5 and 6)�Sector agency – (Chapter 5 and 6)�Planner – Chapter 6 directly relevant, �Chapters 4, 5 and 7.�- Citizen, NGO, resident forum or village council
member
What Nature Provides us?
Nature provides local benefits at a lower cost than technical solutions
• New York Secured its source of drinking water for US$2 billion instead of investing in a comparable pre-treatment plant for US$7 billion.
• In India, Environmental authorities in Jaipur, are enlarging urban green spaces as a cost-effective way of reducing surface run-off and replenishing ground water during the monsoon.
• In Australia, Local authorities in Canberra have enhanced urban quality of life by planting 400,000 trees. The benefits are expected to amount to the equivalent of US$20–67 million for the period 2008–2012 in terms of the value generated or savings incurred to the city
Provisioning services• Food, fibre and fuel• Water provision • Genetic resources
Regulating Services• Climate /climate change regulation• Water and waste purification • Air purification • Erosion control• Natural hazards mitigation• Pollination• Biological control
Cultural Services • Aesthetics, Landscape value, recreation and
tourism• Cultural values and inspirational services
Supporting Services• Soil formation
+ Resilience - eg to climate change
Many services from the same resource
Important to appreciate the whole set of ecosystem services.
Current lack of awareness, though this is changing
We depend on nature for our well-being
Potential – Not fully recognized
�Development strategies focus on economic growth
�Services that nature provides are often not visible �Competing demands on nature. �Time lags. �Poor understanding of natural cause and effect. �Public versus private benefits.�Fragmented decision making
What can policy makers do?
�Make good use of available instruments and procedures
�Develop local solutions�Advocate environmental concerns at
higher policy levels
PART II
Some questions common to all local planning decisions
�What does nature provide us at the local level?�How valuable is this? �How do we evaluate these ecosystem services or
value them in monetary terms?�Who is affected by changes in services? �How might those affected by these changes alter
their behaviour?
HOW TO ASSESS NATURE’S BENEFITS: A STEPWISE APPROACH
• Step 1: Specify and agree on the problem• Step 2: Identify which ecosystem services are
relevant to the decision• Step 3: Define the information needs and select
appropriate methods• Step 4: Assess the expected changes in the flow
of ecosystem services• Step 5: Identify and assess policy options• Step 6: Assess distributional impacts of policy
options
Different frameworks that can be used
• 1. Purely monetary values: Total Economic Value.
How can valuation aid in conservation?Example: Human-Elephant-Conflict Sri Lanka• elephants consume 150kg of food every day: crop raiding
is a serious problem in densely inhabited areas –defences cause injuries, etc..
• a survey of impacts on 480 local households and of their willingness to accept compensation.
• a second survey among Colombo city residents: their willingness to pay for the conservation of elephants exceeds the funding needed for compensating rural elephant damage.
• in 2007, Ceylinco Insurance presented a new scheme, partly CSR and partly profit driven: Ceylinco proposed a a small charge addition to the premium payments of life/vehicle policy holders. This feeds a trust for compensations payments.
Part III How to apply them in Policy areas or public management tasks?
4. Environmental Management Systems: EMAS, ISO, Ecobudget
5. NRM: forestry, fisheries, agriculture, water management, disaster mitigation, tourism
6. Spatial planning instruments and EIA 7. Protected Area Management 8. Marked-based instruments for conservation 9. Competitions, certification and labelling
Why should local governments be interested in biodiversity and ecosystem services?
• Local governments have many needs to address to provide a good quality of life for citizens..
• Nature is an important asset for local development. • Assessing the ecosystem services makes the value of asset
visible • The poor, especially in rural areas, rely most directly on
nature’s services for their well-being. • Addressing the loss of ecosystem services can significantly
contribute to reducing poverty. • Global climate change makes action on creating healthy
ecosystems more urgent.
Benefits of including ecosystem services in public management
• Whether nearby or further afield, the natural capital from ecosystems contributes to delivering municipal services.
• Important to identify cost-effective management options.• Enhance citizens’ quality of life in urban areas• Reduce public management costs• Foster economic growth in the area• Reduce poverty• Protect against environmental disasters
Public Management systems and urban management
• Different (standardized and non-standardized) environmental management systems (EMS) available for Local Governments to implement, such as:
� ISO 14000 series � ecoBUDGET �EMAS. •
How can local governments act - Examples
• Green public places and infrastructure• Low-resource consuming Housing • Land-use / urban sprawl / sustainable urban
development• Solid waste treatment• Water supply and wastewater treatment• Energy supply• Transport
5. Managing Natural Resources to Enhance Ecosystem Services
• Agriculture• Fisheries and wetlands• Managing ecosystems for tourism• Resilience and • Disaster mitigation
Agriculture interacts with wider ecosystems and services
Agricultural revolution in an Indian Hiware Bazar Village
• An agrarian village in an arid district turned from abject poverty to become home to more than 50 millionaires (in Rupees) and boasts one of the highest average rural incomes in India.
• In the 1970s, problems from low rainfall (400 mm annually) were exacerbated by increasing run-off during monsoons, leading to a decline in water levels and acute water shortages.
• The cause was deforestation and vegetation loss in the surrounding catchment. By 1989 barely 12% of the arable land could be farmed and this crisis had already triggered a trend of out-migration.
• Village elders and leaders realised that the way out of this vicious poverty cycle was better management of water and forests. They drew up and implemented an integrated natural resource management plan which was helped by the emergence of the Indian government’s Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS) in the mid-1990s
How can local policy integrate ecosystem services
• Planning• Management• Regulation and protection• Coordination and collective action• Investment• Incentives• Extension services and capacity building• Research and promotion
6 Environmental tools
• Local Governments can also use different environmental tools that can support the management of natural resources, such as:
� Indicators� Green public procurement� Local Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans� Planning� Strategic environmental assessments and � Environmental impact assessments and so on. • These tools have specific purposes and can be coordinated
through an environmental management system.
Singapore City Biodiversity Index• A grading system to measure how cities worldwide are conserving
their plant and animal species.• The Singapore Index on Cities' Biodiversity would measure
performance and assign scores based on three categories:• Biodiversity - the number of plant, animal and other species that
exist in a city;• The services that these plants and animals provide, such as
pollination and as carbon sinks; and• How well a city manages its biodiversity - for instance, by setting up
a conservation agency or a museum to document species and habitats.
• help cities benchmark the success of their efforts to reduce biodiversity loss and hopefully enhance urban biodiversity in the longer term.
Conservation of ecosystems through environmental management systems –
Ecobudget in Sweden• In Sweden, Växjö's biggest industries are forestry and wood
production , with forests covering 60% of its geographical area.• It is a pioneer of using wood biomass for fuel and has been using
ecoBUDGET as a management tool to meet its environmental target to become Fossil Fuel Free.
• Using forest waste collected from within 100 km of the city, more than 90% of the energy for heating is renewable.
• Between 1993 and 2008 the emissions of carbon dioxide from Växjö have decreased by 35% per capita and the city was able to increase its GDP/capita by 50%.
• Collective environmental thinking over the last few decades has resulted in economic profits as well as cleaner air and water.
• Växjö officials are proud that the municipality is well on its way to further achievements.
7 Reasons for consider PAs in local development
• PAs are part of a larger social and ecological landscape.• Coordinating regulation and management inside and
outside PAs can decrease conservation-related costs and increase conservation-related benefits.
• Good coordination can enhance and secure the flow of ecosystem services to local beneficiaries.
• If local authorities establish and (co-)manage their own PAs, they have more control over community resources and objectives.
• Many local communities and indigenous peoples want PAs so they can conserve their landscape, livelihoods, collective rights and culture.
Hazard Protection in Switzerland
• For 150 years, a proportion of Swiss forests have been managed to control avalanches, landslides and rock-falls, especially in the Alps (Brändli and Gerold 2001).
• Some 17% of Swiss forests are managed for hazard protection, usually on a local scale.
• Support for these measures, and help in identifying specific locations, is strengthened by calculations projecting that these ‘protection forests’ provide services estimated at US$ 2-3.5 billion annually (ISDR 2004).
Case where both biodiversity and local livelihoods have benefited
• Humla region in Northwest Nepal• A complex ecosystem and a highly contested area of natural
products. • Land was awarded to the local community to produce high
value essential oils and sales are negotiated by organisations in the partnership, thus disincentivising the use of low value raw produce such as fuel wood.
• The essential component of this is community members working together with the enterprise organizations to learn skills, help develop plans and take up formal tenure.
8 Payment for ecosystem services
• PES is an incentive-based approach to protect ecosystem services by compensating landowners or managers who adopt practices that are favorable to an ecosystem.
• PES can focus on a variety of services,• Hydrological services• Biodiversity Protection• Landscape Beauty • Salinity control• Soil erosion Prevention
RELEVANCE OF PES TO LOCAL POLICY MAKERS
• Aid in biodiversity conservation and sustainable ecosystem service provision (where conventional regulatory approaches have failed);
• Provide revenue and employment opportunities at the local level;
• Finance and mobilize sustainable conservation initiatives that support the economic development of rural populations;
Some design issues of PES� The form of payments and how to disperse them;� Which services to pay for – and who to pay;•� The size of the payment; � How to evaluate the program’s cost-effectiveness and
effectiveness; � The role of intermediaries; � Whether secure tenure rights are necessary; � How compliance with the program’s requirements will be
monitored and enforced; � Whether PES should be linked to poverty alleviation
Attracting the poor through microinsurance programs - Biorights project at East Kolkata
Wetlands in India• Biorights is an innovative concept launched to compensate the poor
for conserving the Biodiversity and the environment by transforming nature services into alternative economic opportunities like micro-insurances and micro-financing schemes.
• The hypothesis is that in this way a sustainable rural development is possible as the negative link between poverty and nature degradation will disappear.
• This bio-rights project advocates the right of commons for getting compensated for their endeavors to conserve the wetlands.
• Eco-tourism has been used as a financial tool, to establish this compensation model through micro health insurance scheme and bank linkages for micro-financing
• This has been a successful case of public-private partnership towards environmental conservation and poverty alleviation
Certification and Labelling9 Certification and Labelling
• Labelling can highlight ecosystem services connected with particular products
• Raise awareness about the opportunities for consumers
• Labelling helps to provide a credible guarantee for sustainable production
• Certification provides standards for the more sustainable use of resources.
• Certified products sometimes achieve a significant price premium;
• Involves local actors to jointly address ecosystem services.
Blue Flag Certification for coastal areas: an economic argument in South Africa
• The Blue Flag certification scheme is targeted at local authorities, the public and the tourism industry in coastal areas.
• A blue flag is awarded annually to beaches and marinas that meet certain environmental, amenity and safety criteria and assures recreational users of a quality visit to the beach.
• Studies from South Africa show economic benefits from increased tourist visits due to the Blue Flag award.
• In the holiday town of Margate along the Kongweni Estuary, the loss of Blue Flag status is estimated at a potential economic loss of between US$ 2.7 million and US$ 3.4 million per annum (Nahman and Rigby 2008, transformed to 2007 US$ ).
• In Durban, a decrease in consumer confidence was attributed partly to the lost status in 2008 (personal communication, Alison Kelly, National Blue Flag Program Manager at WESSA).
10 Making your natural capital work for local development
• We need to change the way we think. • It’s easier to see with the lights on. • We can all speak the same language. • You have the tools you need. • Making it happen.
Volume II: Structure of the cases
• What is the Problem?• Which ecosystem services were considered and
how?• What policy uptake resulted from examining
the ecosystem services?•
• www. Eyeonearth.cloudapp.net
D2 case studies on the Environmental Atlas
CCommunity forest management is a successful avenue toprovide health and family planning services as well asrelieving environmental pressure in the Khata area ofthe Terai region in Nepal.
NEPALClick to access
case study
Selecting a case study with viewable key message
CCommunity forest management is a successful avenue toprovide health and family planning services as well asrelieving environmental pressure in the Khata area ofthe Terai region in Nepal.
NEPALClick to access
case study
Further case detail can be downloaded
Our special thanks to the Japanese partners for all their support and looking forward to the continued support
