16.9. Mooney
Keynote Presentations from the 4th ALTER-Net Summer School, Peyresq 5 - 17 September 2009
Speaker: Harold A. Mooney
hmooney -at- stanford.edu
Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA
Title of the talk: The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment - Why it happened. Will it happen again? (pdf: 1MB)
Summary of the talk and discussion by Daniela Babicová (pdf)
Abstract
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment - why it happened. Will it happen again?The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) has received wide acceptance across a large community extending from scientists to industrialists and policy makers. Given its success there have been calls for a follow up assessment or even reassessments spaced at regular intervals. In parallel there have been calls for a biodiversity assessment (IMOSEB). These two efforts have converged. We will discuss the history of the follow up efforts, the nature of their support as well as the resistance and focus on where we are today in this movement. Any follow-up would have to have some features of the initial assessment in order to provide a common metric of change in order to evaluate progress, stagnation, or advances in sustaining ecosystem services. Importantly though new science will have to be brought to bear on these issues since the original conceptual framework was just that ― conceptual. At present there are many advances on actually how to quantify services and ways to stimulate markets for them, as one example. There are many other advances in the natural/social science interface that will be useful in further efforts. Some ideas for a follow up agenda will be given as a springboard for group discussion.
Recommended background literature on this presentation:
- Goldman RL, Tallis H, Kareiva P, Daily GC (2008) Field evidence that ecosystem service projects support biodiversity and diversify options. PNAS 105(27) 9445-9448, doi:10.1073/pnas.0800208105
- McCauley DJ(2006) Selling out on nature. Nature 443:27-28, doi:10.1038/443027a
- Loreau M (2006) Diversity without representation. Nature 442:245-246, doi:10.1038/442245a
- UNEP and France (2008) Intergovernmental science-policy platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services. (pdf: 100KB)
