IFF-Lecture: Challenges of the ecosystem service concept

Untangling Ecosystem Services
Presentation: Roy Haines-Young
Fabis Consulting Ltd, and Emeritus Professor, University of Nottingham

A key concern at present is to make the concept of ecosystem services operational. That is - to get the idea it ‘used’ - notjust in the environmental arena, but in decision making more generally. However, the task of operationalisation is a challengingone. Not only because the concept is itself a complex, multi-faced one, but also because it is often seen differently from differentdisciplinary perspectives. Moreover, in real-world applications experts and lay-people often have to work together, so that differen-ces in understandings frequently become significant.This presentation will discuss the role of conceptual frameworks in helping groups come together to solve the kinds of ‘wickedproblem’ that exist at the interface of people and nature. In these situations, problems and problem solving strategies are usuallypoorly specified at the start, and deeper understandings can be only developed by the group working in iterative ways to build upa richer understanding of the issues. Researchers can play a significant role in this process of untangling ecosystem services byacting as ‘knowledge brokers’. The talk will consider how such work can be supported using social media tools to: map out sematicrelationships between key concepts; to support knowledge elicitation, so that users can document what they know or what theyhave uncovered from their work; and, to provide a collaborative environment, in which ideas can be discussed, explored and refined.For the most recent publication supporting this talk please follow: POTSCHIN, M.; R. HAINES-YOUNG, R. FISH AND K. TURNER (eds.)(2016): Routledge Handbook of Ecosystem Services. Routledge, London and New York, 630 pp.http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9781138025080/

Using human well-being-concepts as a problem-related entry point
Presentation: Kurt Jax
Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Leipzig, Department of Conservation BiologyandProf. at Technische Universität München, Research Department Ecology and Ecosystem Management

The yardstick for the evaluation of ecosystem services is their contribution to human well-being. While the biological andeconomic dimensions of ES have dealt with in much detail, detailed analyses and uses of the concept of human well-being are stillrather scarce. Human well-being concepts provide, however, a major potential of linking the often rather abstract ES frameworksto real world problems. After all, the problems that are to be solved with the help of ES frameworks do not originate from nature,but from differing human needs and wants. Using human well-being thus not as the end point in analysing the relations betweennature (or ecosystems) and humans, but as the starting point offers new vistas to frame problems and guide research on ES. Mycontribution will thus exemplify concept(s) of human well-being and show how more detailed and context-dependent specifica-tion of human well-being can help to find a reflexive way for problem solving that also takes into account issues of social andenvironmental justice.