Asean holds training on integrating ecosystem services into dev’t planning

Los Baños, Laguna, Philippines – Development planners from Southeast Asian countries converged recently in  the Philippines for a five-day training-workshop on Integrating Ecosystem Services (IES) into Development Planning.

Organized by the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB), Southeast Asian Regional Centre for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH through the Biodiversity and Climate Change Project, the training-workshop opened last Dec. 3 at SEARCA, Los Baños, Laguna.

Participants are national and local government planners, policy-makers and decision-makers from both conservation and development sectors, including researchers and academics from universities and research institutes.

The participants were introduced to a guide developed by GIZ for development planners and policymakers on integrating ecosystem services into development planning. It advocates a step-wise approach where planners can recognize, demonstrate and capture the value of biodiversity and ecosystem services for development planning. The development of the guide was based on the findings of the TEEB study and the practical experience of the GIZ.

TEEB is short for The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, a landmark study that assesses the economic impacts associated with losing natural capital.

The TEEB outlines the cost of policy inaction and finds that under a “business as usual” scenario, an average year’s natural capital loss would lead to a loss of ecosystem services worth around $2 trillion to $4.5 trillion over a 50-year period. Failing to account for the value of these losses would lead to wrong choices and decisions in addressing sustainable development challenges.

The TEEB study also describes in economic terms the inextricable links between eliminating poverty and conserving biodiversity and ecosystems. The study highlights the importance of looking at ecosystem services not merely as a percentage of national GDP, but also as a percentage of the “GDP” of poor rural and forest-dwelling communities who depend on forests for their livelihood.

The TEEB underscored four key solutions: to halt deforestation and forest degradation; to protect tropical coral reefs; to save and restore global fisheries; and to recognize the deep link between ecosystem degradation and the persistence of rural poverty.

Acting executive director Demetrio L. Ignacio Jr., the concurrent undersecretary for field operations of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, said development planners are often confronted with a set of multifaceted challenges in development planning processes.

“Projects and policies intended to meet development goals often go forward unwittingly at the expense of nature. For example, a national plan to expand agriculture to increase food production may increase deforestation leading to soil erosion and flooding. Frequently, development goals are undermined as the effects of these trade-offs are felt by people who depend on nature for their livelihood and well-being.

“Recognizing the links between ecosystem services and development goals can mean the difference between a successful strategy and one that fails because of an unexamined consequence for an ecosystem service. A better ability to assess, describe and value benefits of ecosystem services might help decision makers to better understand how their actions depend on and might change these services, consider the trade-offs among options, and choose policies that sustain such services,”  Ignacio explained.

Dr. Bertholt Seibert, project director of the ACB-GIZ Biodiversity and Climate Change Project, said the development and wellbeing of human societies are invariably linked to ecosystems and the benefits they provide. Recognizing the correlation between these ecosystem services and development is a success factor for development planning. Managing ecosystems to sustain the flow of ecosystem services can provide immediate economic benefits, and strengthen the resilience of those systems, especially in the face of climate change.

“The Los Baños event is the first in a series of training-workshops to enhance capacities of development planners and decision makers in the ASEAN region on managing ecosystems to sustain the flow of ecosystem services that can provide immediate economic benefits, and strengthen the resilience of those systems, especially in the face of climate change,” Dr. Seibert said.