Abstract

Despite two decades of advancing the understanding of valuing ecosystem services, the global biodiversity crisis continues to face challenges in integrating nature's diverse values into decision-making. Barriers include powerful interests shaped by existing norms and legal rules, such as property rights.

The Values Assessment (VA) of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services shows that while a wide range of valuation methods exist to include nature's values in diverse decision-making contexts, uptake of these methods remains limited. Building on the VA, this paper reviews five critical steps in the evaluation of project or policy proposals that can improve the inclusion of nature’s values in decisions.

Abstract

Global change has led to significant impacts on ecosystem services, posing a threat to the livelihoods of local communities worldwide. It is essential to assess these services to integrate them into regional planning, and policy design. We conduct ecosystem services assessments to inform spatial decision-making in a transboundary catchment. We focus on Mira-Mataje (11617 km2) transboundary catchment as an example of a natural unit, rich in natural resources that hosts an important cultural heritage of Indigenous and Afro-descendant ethnic groups.

AbstractBiodiversity decline in the tropics requires the implementation of comprehensive landscape management where agricultural systems are necessarily an integral element of biodiversity conservation. This study evaluates the potential for taxonomic biodiversity conservation within an intensive livestock-agricultural-forest mosaic landscape in Catacamas, Honduras. Tree sampling was performed in 448 plots set up within different forest and agricultural land uses: secondary forests, agroforestry coffee plantations, agriculture, pastures, live fences and riparian forest.

Abstract

We use monthly municipality data for the period 2000-2015 in Guatemala and monthly district data for the period 1992-2019 in Costa Rica. We define relevant catchment areas using water flows to the population centers of the administrative units. Then, we calculate the precipitation inside and outside Pas within the relevant catchment areas, and test how the frequency of floods and landslides is affected by whether rain falls inside or outside PAs. We use a two-way fixed-effects panel data model. For Guatemala, we find no robust statistically significant effects on these types of disasters.

In 2008 the International Maritime Organization (IMO) decided on more stringent requirements from 2015 for airborne emissions of sulphur dioxide from sea transports in the sulphur emission control areas (SECA). The European SECA comprises the Baltic Sea, the North Sea and the English Channel. The paper contains an overview of the European studies that have been carried out to investigate the impacts of IMO's more stringent sulphur requirements. All studies were carried out after IMO's decision in 2008 (which means that the decision was taken based on other reasons).

The combined effects of climate change, marine tourism and other stressors threaten the ecological and economic sustainability of coral reefs. This study investigates dive industry stakeholder awareness of the threats to coral reefs through structured interviews with Dive Masters, company managers and marine management agencies in Vietnam, Australia, Malaysia and Indonesia. Stakeholders from all locations have observed degradation of local reefs. Destructive fishing was identified as the principal threat in all regions except Australia.