Ecosystem Services and Poverty Alleviation Trade-Offs and Governance

About this book

Understanding how to sustain the services that ecosystems provide in support of human wellbeing is an active and growing research area. This book provides a state-of-the-art review of current thinking on the links between ecosystem services and poverty alleviation. In part it showcases the key findings of the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) programme, which has funded over 120 research projects in more than 50 countries since 2010. ESPA's goal is to ensure that ecosystems are being sustainably managed in a way that contributes to poverty alleviation as well as to inclusive and sustainable growth. As governments across the world map how they will achieve the 17 ambitious Sustainable Development Goals, most of which have poverty alleviation, wellbeing and sustainable environmental management at their heart, ESPA's findings have never been more timely and relevant.

Ecosystem Services and Poverty Alleviation synthesises the headline messages and compelling evidence to address the questions at the heart of ecosystems and wellbeing research. The authors, all leading specialists, address the evolving framings and contexts for the work, review the impacts of ongoing drivers of change, present new ways to achieve sustainable wellbeing, equity, diversity, and resilience, and evaluate the potential contributions from conservation projects, payment schemes, and novel governance approaches across scales from local to national and international.

The cross-cutting, thematic chapters challenge conventional wisdom in some areas, and validate new methods and approaches for sustainable development in others. Ecosystem Services and Poverty Alleviation will provide a rich and important reference source for advanced students, researchers and policy-makers in ecology, environmental studies, ecological economics and sustainable development.

Contents

Part I Evolving framings and contexts
1. Seeing the wood for the trees: exploring the evolution of frameworks of ecosystem services for human wellbeing
      Unai Pascual and Caroline Howe
2. Justice and equity: emerging research and policy approaches to address ecosystem service trade-offs
      Neil Dawson, Brendan Coolsaet and Adrian Martin
3. Advancing perspectives and approaches for complex social-ecological systems
      Belinda Reyers and Odirilwe Selomane
4. Limits and thresholds: setting global, local and regional safe operating spaces
      John Dearing

Part II Ongoing and rapid system changes
5. Interactions of migration and population dynamics with ecosystem services
      W. Neil Adger and Matt Fortnam
6. Land use intensification: the promise of sustainability and the reality of trade-offs
      Adrian Martin, Brendan Coolsaet, Esteve Corbera, Neil Dawson, Janet Fisher, Phil Franks, Ole Mertz, Unai Pascual, Laura Rasmussen and Casey Ryan
7. Ecosystem services and poverty alleviation in urbanising contexts
      Fiona Marshall, Jonathan Dolley, Ramila Bisht, Ritu Priya, Linda Waldman, Priyanie Amerasinghe and Pritpal Randhawa
8. Reciprocal commitments for addressing forest-water relationships
      Lana Whittaker, Eszter K. Kovacs and Bhaskar Vira
9. Restoration of ecosystems and ecosystem services
      Alison Cameron

Part III Improving governance
10. Governing for ecosystem health and human wellbeing
      Fiona Nunan, Mary Menton, Constance McDermott and Kate Schreckenberg
11. Co-generating knowledge on ecosystem services and the role of new technologies
      Wouter Buytaert, Boris F Ochoa-Tocachi, David M Hannah, Julian Clark and Art Dewulf
12. PES: Payments for ecosystem services and poverty alleviation?
      Mary Menton and Aoife Bennett
13. Scaling-up conditional transfers for environmental protection and poverty alleviation
      Ina Porras and Nigel Asquith
14. Social impacts of protected areas: exploring evidence of trade-offs and synergies
      Emily Woodhouse, Claire Bedelian, Neil Dawson and Paul Barnes

Part IV Achieving sustainable wellbeing
15. Multiple dimensions of wellbeing in practice
      Sarah Coulthard, J. Allister McGregor and Carole S. White
16. Gender and ecosystem services: a blind spot
      Katrina Brown and Matt Fortnam
17. Resilience and wellbeing for sustainability
      Lucy Szaboova, Katrina Brown, Tomas Chaigneau, Sarah Coulthard, Tim Daw and Tom James
18. Insights for sustainable small-scale fisheries
      Daniela Diz and Elisa Morgera

Part V Concluding thoughts
Chapter 19: Ecosystem services for human wellbeing: trade-offs and governance
      Georgina Mace, Kate Schreckenberg and Mahesh Poudyal

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Biography

Kate Schreckenberg is a Reader in Development Geography at King’s College London, UK, and Director of the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) programme. Her research focuses on equity in natural resource governance.

Georgina Mace is Professor of Biodiversity and Ecosystems and Director of the Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research, University College London, UK, and scientific adviser to the ESPA research programme. Her research focuses on the causes and consequence of biodiversity loss and ecosystem change.

Mahesh Poudyal is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) Programme Directorate. He is an environmental social scientist with research focusing on the poverty-environment nexus.