Conference
home Programme
ReNED Conference: Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity
in Developing Countries
Strategies for development assistance and research
An important objective of the conference is to provide recommendations on research
needs and future strategies for development assistance as well as to exchange
experiences among researchers and promote coordination of research efforts.
The concepts of biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management have been
part of the Danish environment and development assistance for more than a decade
and there are important research groupings in Denmark working in this field.
While the conclusions of the conference should provide better guidelines, a
few issues for discussion related to the five key concerns mentioned above are
given below:
1. The importance of biodiversity for maintaining the quality and quantity of
ecosystem services
The volume of research on biodiversity is fairly large, but interdisciplinary
research exploring the complex linkages between biodiversity and ecosystem services
is less common. Moreover, recent scientific hypotheses regarding global change
combined with increased human pressure on natural resources justify new research
initiatives regarding sustainable use and protection of natural resources. Such
basic research is of particular importance to development assistance in order
to avoid that strategies are based on the wrong assumptions.
2. The value of biodiversity in relation to ecosystem services.
Valuation of biodiversity is a highly contentious issue, but it is nonetheless
important in order to provide development planners and politicians with tools
for assessing the economic importance of different habitats, species, etc. Critical
research on economic valuation with its advantages and shortcomings is still
needed, particularly in the developing country context
3. Sustainable financing mechanisms and community based management
Achieving sustainable financing mechanisms in natural resource management is
a key concern for development assistance and more research is needed to understand
which systems work and analyze the causes of successes and failures. An example
is the decentralisation processes in the forest sector of which one aspect is
to ensure that there are sufficient incentives for involved parties to ensure
long-term sustainability. Danish development assistance has supported decentralisation
and community based natural resource management in many countries and the issue
of ecosystem services and fair payments is high on the development agenda.
A Danida initiated working group in 2003 discussed sustainable financing mechanisms
in natural resource management (see:
link to Danida Environment and Energy Network under
Working Groups), and the conference should take its point of departure in this
work, e.g. by discussing the tool developed by the group and the associated
WWF report (see Gutman 2003, cited below).
4. Biodiversity and ecosystem service monitoring
As natural resources are crucial to both rural and urban livelihoods across
the developing world and contribute substantially to national economies, monitoring
of natural resources is becoming increasingly important. At the international
level, several macro-policy initiatives such as the United Nations’ Millenium
Development Goals, the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development,
and related commitments by European Union member states have committed governments
to achieving quantitative targets in reducing poverty and using natural resources
in a sustainable manner. Yet, important though these high-level goals are, policy-makers
simply will not know whether the goals are being met without robust and representative
systems for monitoring the changing state of natural resources.
The past two decades have seen a progressive shift towards encouraging local
communities formally and more effectively to manage their own lands in ways
that are compatible with agreed development goals. There is, thus, a need to
study the potential of locally-based monitoring to complement conventional monitoring
and translate this into tangible results on the ground and ensuring the sustainability
of ecosystem services.
5. Institutional capacity and good governance in the South regarding these
topics
In many countries there is a need to clarify the complexities involved in protected
area management. Objectives, functions, and management of protected areas (PA)
in relationship to biodiversity protection inside and outside the PAs and the
national and international conventions are not always well defined. This is
aggravated by the need for capacity development, particularly in low income
countries, where the management structure is weak and staff in both the public
and private sectors lacks training and up-to-date knowledge on environmental
issues. Recent reliable data on plant and animal resources are frequently not
available at the national and local level, and staff and students at the universities
need upgrading of scientific skills in order to make the institutions viable
and in order to nest knowledge in the developing community. The investments
made in strategic environmental research and capacity builidng during the 1990s
are in urgent need of a follow-up in particular in regions of high biodiversity
and in those endangered by environmental degradation.
Gutman, P. 2003. From Goodwill to Payments for Environmental
Services. A Survey of Financing Options for Sustainable Natural Resource Management
in Developing Countries. WWF, Washington D.C. Find this publication on:
http://environment.dccd.cursum.net
under ‘Working Groups’, ’Sustainable Finance’, ’WWF Survey Document’.
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