Ecosystem Services: A bridge or a barrier for environmental management?

Abstract

Across disciplines, the concept of ecosystem services has become an accepted concept through which the complexities of the natural world and its relationships with human society are explained and embedded into global environmental policy. At a time when global ecosystems are continually under pressure due to anthropogenic influences and interactions, it aims to provide policy makers, practitioners and scientists with a common language. In spite of this widespread acceptance, the concept of ecosystem services is in its very nature complicated and full of complex, and sometimes, intangible interactions. As the field of ecosystem service research has grown, the ecosystem services framework has developed, most recently through the Follow on to the UK’s National Ecosystem Assessment (2014), to encompass: four different categories of ecosystem services (regulating, supporting, provisioning, and cultural), various ecosystem processes and characteristics, the final ecosystem services and the many associated benefits. While stakeholders have, for the most part, adopted this relatively new language and terminology, questions remain as to whether the ecosystem services concept provides the common language it promotes. There are concerns that the complexities associated with ecosystem services as a concept make it inaccessible for people living and working in these ecosystems. The paper seeks to better understand how and why the ecosystem service concept is (or is not) being used, with a view to improving its application for the benefit of natural resource management. Through a questionnaire survey, this presentation examines three main questions relating to the perceptions of UK marine and coastal stakeholders, researchers and policy makers towards the concept of ecosystem services: - What are the views and perceptions of marine and coastal practitioners in the UK towards the term ecosystem services? - Do these differ between sectors and user groups? - How do these attitudes/ views influence the use of the concept? While this study focuses on marine and coastal management in the UK, the findings contribute to the ongoing debate around ecosystem services as a tool for effective environmental management and policy development. We will present respondents’ views about its role as either a barrier or a bridge, or both, within the marine and coastal science-policy-practice interface. Finally, the presentation sets out a series of recommendations to support the future use of the ecosystem services concept in UK coastal and marine management.