Biodiversity and ecosystem services are often undervalued and misunderstood, meaning National Policy-setting and decision-making processes have often not taken their true value fully into account.
As a result, different sectors such as forestry, agriculture and water often do not account for the importance of biodiversity and ecosystem services in achieving their own objectives and risk undermining sustainability.
Ecosystem assessments can deliver an evidence base that meets the needs of different sectors and encourages integration. Full stakeholder engagement in carrying out assessments builds understanding and trust in the outputs, and therefore a better outcome. The assessment will undertake a consultative process with a wide range of stakeholders across government and private sectors.
The aim of this initiative is to build capacities at the national level to undertake national ecosystem assessments and support the uptake of the assessments into decision making.
Current countries supported include: Cameroon, Colombia, Ethiopia, Viet Nam, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia and Grenada.
Our global approach:
Our national approach:
The UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre team carrying out this work have significant experience in supporting countries in undertaking National Ecosystem Assessments.
The work will be led by Claire Brown and Nadine Bowles-Newark.
This project is undertaken via funding by the Government of Germany, Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety, International Climate Initiative (IKI).
The first phase of the national ecosystem assessment project is implemented in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) under the framework of the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Network (BES-Net). UNDP also support the application of the Trialogue approach to the assessments to enhance a three-way dialogue between scientists, policymakers and practitioners.
The project will be supporting the work of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).