Dimarzio Dual Sound Wiring Diagram Countries around the world face a tremendous challenge to mainstream ecosystem services and sustainable development standards into planning at various scales. This session will focus on the challenges and solutions based on examples from Nepal, Senegal, Costa Rica, Ghana and China. It will be a journey experience from Latin America to Asia through Africa. Participants will have a chance to capture lessons learned and identify how they can be applied to their own reality.

2008 Honda Odyssey Wiring Diagrams Session Lead: Marcelo Guevara, Research Associate at the Natural Capital Project, Stanford University

• Roland Apambilla, PhD Candidate at Institute for Environment and Sanitation Studies, University of Ghana, Accra
  • Title: Mapping and Valuation of Ecosystem Services for Sustainable Human Livelihoods and Improve Biodiversity Conservation in Ghana using Integrated Valuation of Ecosystems Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) Models
  • Abstract: Ecosystem services are valuable sources livelihood for most people and are an integral part of ensuring sustainable development especially in developing countries. Despite their importance, ecosystem services are often invisible to decision makers. As a consequence, decision makers tend to ignore the impact of their decision on the provision of ecosystem services.  The implications of these distortions in decision making can lead to irreversible damages to the environment and excessive degradation of ecosystem functions and therefore reduction in the provision of ecosystem services. Under such situations human society and vulnerable groups suffer continuous poverty and impoverishment.
    In Ghana, a large proportion of the population (60-70%) depends on forestry and agriculture resources for their livelihoods and the country's GDP is dominated by contributions from these sectors. Evidence however to support government policies and programs on the role of ecosystem services and natural capital to the economic growth and sustainable livelihoods of communities are lacking. To address this gap, this study will focus on mapping and valuation of ecosystem services to inform policy decisions in this regard. Using the INVEST models the specific objective of this research include: 1. Map and categorize the key ecosystem services that are obtained in selected forestry and water catchment ecosystems in Ghana. 2. Quantify and assess the economic value of the ecosystem services identified from the selected ecosystems 3. Assess the impacts of land use and land cover changes on biodiversity and multiple ecosystem services provision among the selected ecosystems. 4. Determine and evaluate the critical supply and demand areas of these ecosystem services in Ghana 5. Evaluate the Impact of conservation interventions on the improvement of biodiversity, ecosystem services and local communities’ livelihoods eg REDD+ program. There outcome of this research will help us see the value of ecosystem services to improve our understanding of the contribution of ecosystem services to economic growth and human well-being in the local context. This will aid in the incorporation of value of ecosystem services into policy and management frameworks such as payment for ecosystem services. This will provide scientific justification and incentive for their conservation.

• Camille Jahel, Research fellow at CIRAD (French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development)
  • Title: Levers to increase territorial sustainability in the Sahel: Lessons from a participatory approach in Senegal.
  • Abstract: In West Africa, with a background of climate change and globalization, population growth, extractive activities and agribusiness-led intensive agriculture create increasing pressure on natural capital. In the Niayes region, part of Senegal’s drylands, these changes are causing the loss of agricultural lands and the rapid shrinking of groundwater. The future of rural territories is under threat, which calls for actions to counter or mitigate these trends.
    We conducted a foresight exercise for the Niayes territory, enabling local experts to co-build six plausible and contrasted scenarios for Niayes up to 2040. We used spatial modeling to simulate indicators of sustainability for each scenario. The experts identified pathways of actions connecting the present situation to these alternative futures. Three main factors can bend the current territorial trajectory: governance, education and natural resource management. The sustainable scenarios have in common inclusive governance, highly structured civil society, and the preservation of natural resources by means of effective regulations that value natural capital. An up-scaling of these findings is now initiated, in collaboration with Eric Lambin at Stanford University to identify the conditions required for territorial transitions towards sustainability in marginal regions, including spillover and offshoring effects.

• Ekraj Sigdel, Policy and Governance Specialist at WWF Nepal
  • Title: Mainstreaming Environmental Accounting into Whole of Governance System
  • Abstract: The Government of Nepal has initiated mainstreaming natural accounting system into decision making process recently. In this regard, stakeholder coordination meetings and review of ongoing initiatives towards environmental accountings were carried out under the leadership of Ministry of Forests and Environment together with Central Bureau of Statistics. It has been realized that there is a huge gap towards accounting natural resources specifically forest, land and water and adopting environment integrated development planning and decision-making process. Further, Nepal’s planning and decision-making process has not considered values of environment as there is no disaggregated and quality data. 
    Moreover, decision makers are not fully aware on the long-term economic benefits of natural resources conservation and management. It has been realized that development planner should be equally aware in the higher economic benefits of managing natural resources through integrating into local and provincial development planning and budgeting processes. However, in the absence of clear knowledge on scope of natural resources accounting and implication in natural resources dependent poor, women and marginalized communities. Therefore, an attempt has been made to collect and compile the natural resource accounting issues, initiatives and mainstreaming into local development planning and budgeting process at local and province government level in Nepal.  

• Marcello Hernández-Blanco, Independent Researcher
  • Title: Coastal ecosystem services modeling in Latin America to design conservation and restoration strategies: The case of mangroves in Guatemala and El Salvador
  • Abstract: We modeled the coastal protection and blue carbon ecosystem services provided by the mangroves of the Paz River Basin (El Salvador and Guatemala) using InVEST, with the goal of supporting the Regional Coastal Biodiversity Project of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in determining priority mangrove areas to conserve and restore. For the coastal protection model, we produced a set of 10 maps containing the ecological, physical and social spatial data (e.g. geomorphology, sea level rise, shore exposure) that determine the level of protection that mangroves provide. We also produced a set of 10 maps using the blue carbon model, including carbon stocks in three points in time (2020, 2050 and 2050), net sequestration and the economic value of this services. We developed an ecosystem services combined index to calculate priority conservation areas, from which we estimate there are approximately 1,741 hectares of mangroves that provide the highest coastal protection and blue carbon services. Furthermore, we identified 318.9 hectares in both countries that have a potential for restoration, and then we identified which of these areas would provide the coastal protection service with the highest intensity.