This article originally appeared in The Circle 02.15.
There are a number of examples of where valuation of ecosystem services has successfully influenced policy and planning. One of those is on the west coast of Vancouver Island, Canada where one of the most diverse, collaborative marine planning processes in the world has been created. It is now serving as a model for marine planning globally. In determining the value of ecosystems and biodiversity, Stacey Solie says consensus and an inclusive decision-making process are crucial to success.

Rainfall as high as 22 feet annually supports lush temperate rainforests and raging rivers, and the coast is carved into an array of fjords, inlets and bays. Of the world’s marine mammal species, one out of three live here, including thousands of gray whales that migrate along the coast on their way north to feed and south to breed. Nuu-chah-nulth Indigenous peoples have depended on the west coast’s abundant natural resources for sustenance for thousands of years. They and newer residents in the area pursue a range of livelihoods including fishing, shellfish harvesting, shipping, mining, logging, aquaculture, and supporting a growing tourism industry that brings over a million people each year to whale-watch, kayak, and camp. These activities collectively generate about US $630 million annually, with many sectors poised to grow.
Management of the coast’s resources has long created tension as different sectors are often in competition with each other for access and control. Conflict is common in populated, productive coastal areas around the world. To manage this tension, since the 1990s, residents have been laying the social groundwork for The West Coast of Vancouver Island Aquatic Management Board (WCA), which represents a uniquely inclusive and collaborative approach to coastal management that is now being replicated in other regions, including along the coastline of British Columbia through the Marine Planning Partnership (MaPP). WCA’s planning process uses ecological, economic, and social data to map resources and sensitive areas and to identify zones for development and protection. Lack of data or access to data is often one of the biggest challenges to spatial planning, but WCA was able to gather over 200 data layers, resulting in a publicly available atlas, showcasing rich information about the ecology and human uses of the region. They’ve produced a report—the Integrated Coastal and Ocean Management Strategies—one of the only examples in Canada; created the first implementation strategy under Canada’s Wild Salmon Strategy; and have carried out “millions of dollars worth of work in restoration, assessment, sustainable local fisheries, and other innovative projects,” according to Andrew Day in his report, Innovation and Communications about Marine Protection, Aquatic Conservation.
A key to the success of WCA is that its membership is comprised of trusted representatives from all levels of government including First Nations, the federal government, the Province of British Columbia, and regional representatives, together with representatives from key sectors such as fishing, aquaculture, and tourism, and from non-profit and scientific organizations. To foster widespread trust, board members engaged in extensive communications, conducting repeated community meetings over several years, collecting the community’s visions and values, sharing draft plans, receiving feedback, and continually revising products. The Board also engaged in one-on-one interviews forging and strengthening relationships with thousands of constituents as WCA developed founding principles and objectives, which grew to include sustainable economic growth that maintains the residents’ aesthetic, spiritual and cultural values.
The Natural Capital Project (NatCap) was invited by WCA to help create spatial plans, using NatCap’s approach to including nature’s benefits in spatial planning. For the initial effort the WCA/NatCap team focused on two regions – Barkley and Clayoquot Sounds, where the board faced many difficult questions about balancing growing demands on local ecosystems with conservation of the island’s unique wild character and cultural heritage.
NatCap brought additional science capacity to WCA’s planning process. NatCap developed mathematical models that predict future relationships between local people and nature-based benefits called ecosystem services, such as clean water and shoreline stability. NatCap’s tools (all of which are now available in the free, open source InVEST software) show how different development actions – such as building more homes, or permitting more aquaculture – likely affect ecosystem services such as water quality or recreation opportunities. A habitat risk assessment brought diverse stakeholders together in a participatory process to agree on the best available information and to explore the cumulative effects of multiple activities on local ecosystems and their ability to provide diverse benefits to local communities now and in the future. This clarity about how different future scenarios would play out in specific places allowed the board to engage the community in a transparent decision-making process around how to best achieve development goals along the coast. The NatCap/WCA partnership helped WCA identify clear, measurable metrics with which to measure progress toward their stated goals. These metrics are now being used to guide on-the-ground decisions as plans are continually adapted and implemented.
Stacey Solie is the interim Communications Manager for the Natural Capital Project and the co-creator and founding editor of The Nature Conservancy’s Science Chronicles, She has written for the New York Times, The Daily Beast, and other local and national news outlets.

This article originally appeared in The Circle 02.15.
Putting economics and biodiversity in one sentence or one report always generates a lot of discussion. The concept of ecosystem services puts humans square in the centre of everything – what’s in it for us? As Mark Marissink writes, many people object to this view.

People tend to see nature as a complex web of interconnections and with a range of different values – spiritual, intrinsic, material etc. To single out humankind as the centre of attention then seems to be a bit…well, self-centered. The discussion rises even higher when monetary values are mentioned.
The Economics of Ecosystems and biodiversity (TEEB), however, is not necessarily about monetary values, or about monetization. Yet it is about nature’s value to us and it does put humankind in the centre. But, whether we like it or not, that is pretty much the way things are done in politics and decision making. That is also why it is so important to mainstream biodiversity values (i.e., to make them visible in all decision making). The need for mainstreaming was confirmed by the Arctic Council when adopting the recommendations from the Arctic Biodiversity Assessment, and that’s why it is important to explore what TEEB methodology can contribute in an Arctic context. But how did it come about?
Almost ten years ago, a study was published that changed the debate on climate change. The Stern report showed that climate change would not only affect humankind’s future on earth, it would also affect our economy. Projected changes in temperature would cost us 5-20% of our global GDP by the year 2100. On the other hand, the report also stated that it would cost only a fraction of this to halt the increase in greenhouse gas emissions, if done in time.
Although it was not met with universal acclaim, the impact the Stern report had on policy makers gave food for thought in the international negotiations on biodiversity. Surely an economic case could be made for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity as well? The economics of ecosystems and biodiversity was launched, led by Pavan Sukhdev at Deutsche Bank, in order to provide answers. Not unlike the Stern report, TEEB found that conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity would indeed be beneficial from an economic point of view.
TEEB was very influential in the discussions leading to the new Strategic plan for biodiversity, adopted by the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya in 2010 and subsequently endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly. Target 2 in the plan states: By 2020, at the latest, biodiversity values have been integrated into national and local development and poverty reduction strategies and planning processes and are being incorporated into national accounting, as appropriate, and reporting systems.
TEEB studies have since been carried out in a number of countries and also for specific sectors. They have become more policy-focused over time. The approach and methodology for country scoping studies have been detailed in the 2013 TEEB Guidance manual for country studies. Compared with country studies, however, the policy landscape in the Arctic is diverse and complicated and the Arctic TEEB Scoping Study has been broadened to include information and discussion related more generally to improving understanding of the full range of Arctic ecosystem services, as well as information and discussion on aspects of governance and of valuing ecosystem services in the context of the circumpolar Arctic and Arctic Council. It does not conclude with a defined set of specific policies for assessment in a full TEEB study, but rather provides guidance and examples on policy focus areas that could be further refined and assessed using TEEB methodology.
Another acronym that needs to be mentioned is IPBES, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Under the auspices of IPBES global, regional and subregional assessments of ecosystems and biodiversity will be carried out in order to provide guidance for better decision making. IPBES explicitly tries to consolidate different knowledge systems and different world views in an inclusive process. No specific study for the Arctic is foreseen; rather, the Arctic is covered by two regions (the Americas, and Europe and Central Asia). The TEEB Arctic Scoping study and a possible follow-up will bring a much needed Arctic perspective to the regional and sub-regional studies to be carried out in these regions, and will thus ensure that the Arctic is not forgotten in future global decisions on biodiversity and development.
Mark Marissink heads the unit for nature and biodiversity in the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and is the Swedish representative to the Arctic Council working group on the Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna.

This article originally appeared in The Circle 02.15.
Valuing of ecosystem services draws attention to the economic benefits of biodiversity and highlights the growing costs of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation. The Arctic, for example, represents a tremendous wealth in natural resources and provides immense ecosystem services, such as unique biodiversity, culture, tourism, shipping and climate regulation. By valuing these ecosystem services, Esther Wolfs says one can create insight into their economic value. This allows, for example, assessing the possible negative impact that oil and gas extraction efforts may have on the economic value of these ecosystem services and biodiversity.
Ecosystem service valuation research addresses the relevant ecosystems, ecosystem services and their beneficiaries in a defined area and applies a range of economic valuation and evaluation tools. It is extremely important for stakeholders to participate, by providing local information and valuable insights and creating public support for the concept of ecosystem services among target audiences.
Research areas could include: the socio-economic value of the Arctic’s ecosystem services using an ecosystem valuation framework; how environment-degrading economic activities in the Arctic affect economic values; what trade-offs can be identified; and how these trade-offs can be managed to optimize the long-term economic benefits of the Arctic’s ecosystem services.
In our research we use the classification of ecosystem services from The Economics of Ecosystems & Biodiversity (TEEB) as defined in their 2008 interim report derived from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA, 2005):

• Provisioning services (products obtained from ecosystems, such as food and building materials).
• Regulating services (benefits obtained from regulation of ecosystem processes, such as erosion control and storm protection).
• Cultural services (non-material benefits obtained from ecosystems, such as spiritual and religious values and recreation and ecotourism).
• Habitat (nursery service and gene pool protection).

Essential for the valuation of these ecosystem services is to find ways to measure benefits, which do not enter markets and, as such, have no directly observable monetary benefits. Therefore, different methods have been developed to assign a value to non-marketable ecosystem services, such as Contingent Modeling, where one establishes a willingness to pay by stakeholders for environmental services. The approach is to value nature using different market and non-market valuation methods depending on the use or non-use values of the relevant ecosystem services. This is done through the perspective of various stakeholders such as local residents, visitors, tourist industry, international citizens and other relevant users or interested parties. By summing up the worth of the range of valued ecosystem services, the annual Total Economic Value of the natural environment is estimated.
It is important to understand that valuing ecosystem services is an instrument and not a goal in itself. The valuation results should be used for developing tools that can be easily applied to raise awareness for nature conservation, support decision-making on the economic benefits of investing in nature, develop sustainable financing mechanisms to raise funds for nature conservation, serve as input for spatial planning or assess economic loss if natural assets are damaged by, for example, oil spills. These tools can answer questions relating to environmental management issues at stake as identified by stakeholders and local experts. By increasing evidence-based information and transparency on issues that are related to the natural environment more equitable decisions can be made.
One example of such a tool is a value map indicating the most valuable ecosystems in the marine and terrestrial environment of a specific area. By adding up the values for the various ecosystem services, these maps combined form the Total Economic Value (TEV) maps.

Insight into the value of different areas for different beneficiaries of ecosystem services can be very useful for spatial planning purposes. First, natural areas with higher values are more important to conserve. Second, different uses of ecosystem services might be in conflict with each other. For example, having fishermen and tour operators in the same area can cause friction that is more easily resolved by identification of the important parts of the marine environment for them. Third, the value maps can be combined with spatial information on environmental threats. Spatial analysis of threats and benefits enable conservationists with limited budgets to prioritize their efforts: areas with high values and high threat levels deserve the most urgent attention. It can also inform government priorities. The government of Saba decided to investigate whether it can extend the boundaries of its terrestrial park based on the Saba value map.
Benefits of TEEB Caribbean Netherlands (PDF)
 Esther Wolfs is the founder and director of Wolfs Company which works to show clients the contribution of, and often intrinsically crucial dependence on natural capital.

This article originally appeared in The Circle 02.15.
Some of the ecosystem values of the Arctic are very concrete local commodities such as food, shelter, and provisions. As Piama Oleyer writes, these are also linked to cultural values much harder to quantify, but no less precious.

Our ancestors have inhabited the Aleutian region for nearly ten thousand years. We raised our children to eat from our land and sea, not by necessity but by preference.  Every spring I took a big bowl out and we created salads of such variety to feast on. All summer I taught my children to know which plants, roots, seeds and berries were edible. We made teas, salads and recipes and potions from traditional knowledge. Sadly, there came a time when we went to harvest some of the products of the sea and couldn’t eat them due either to toxicity or regulations about who could take products out of our waters. Natural and manmade disasters are already happening with dire consequences. We have already lost so much that it is no longer ‘a matter of time’, it’s a matter of how low we will draw our bottom line. It’s a matter of not allowing the continuance of the degradation of our natural environment.
To what extent must we keep accepting unbalanced policies that weigh heavy on the value of extracted resources? These policies aren’t designed to benefit the people who’ve lived here for thousands and thousands of years. Policies are designed to benefit the few companies who now ‘own’ our resources. Businesses (even our own) trade traditional harvest areas for leases to industry because Grandma can’t afford the $3.25 per square foot for her basket weaving grass. In Unalaska, salmon found their home stream, the Illiuliuk River, only to meet a choking death caused by mining silt and road chemicals washing downstream over the years. When I was a child, I could cross the river on the backs of the fish without getting wet. That abundance no longer exists.   People can no longer eat food from our beaches due to risk of illness and actual death. Unalaska has been declared a ‘dead bay’ due to industrial activity.
Cultural losses can’t be quantified with a dollar value. When you take away our fish you take away more than just our food. So much in life revolves around gathering it, preparing it, sharing it. With the demise of certain activities, entire concepts are lost and the gaps are obvious when trying to teach our language. Our traditional cultural knowledge is altered. My mother spoke about the great depression when the world seemed to have lost the will to live because they lost their money. “We were poor but we didn’t know it because we had everything we needed,” she would say. When all your needs are met, people are not poor even if you don’t have money.
It is our duty to take care of our place on this planet. We Unangan are the stewards of this area. Our oceans provide an abundance of wealth. We should all be living at our peak potential rather than subsisting to exist. Much in our culture is based on sharing our wealth; this was our way of life. In the Aleutians, we live by an ocean harvest in the most bountiful waters in the world. Over the years, we have been forced to adapt to a new way of harvesting the sea. Whether we exist as commercial or subsistence users, we comply with the regulations governing every aspect of what we have always eaten. We are told who can fish, what to fish, where, when, how and how much, and who we can or can’t give or sell our catch to. Today in our region, a continuous stream of gigantic ships carry our resources away and regulations are written based on who has the most money. These policy-makers are the same ones who allowed bottom trawlers to drag their massive ground level nets right up to our front doors destroying the habitat of the ocean floor.  Subsistence users have a near zero by-catch which means they do not accidentally catch and kill anything they aren’t supposed to.
Super-cargo ships and industrial trawlers bear down on a collision course with the local fishermen in the area around Unimak Bight where these monstrous ships regularly plow through their fishing grounds. The only defense our helpless fishermen have is to put their own lives and boats at risk and stand their ground (fishing grounds) and set their gear as usual. Then they plan to document the injuries they suffer when these immense ships run right over them and their gear. This dangerous attitude is a final effort to change the ways in which the mega-fisheries make it impossible for local people to continue their traditional lifestyle.
Who is this Goliath they face, whose visibility is cut off by the sheer height of the stacked containers? These enormous ships don’t even see the fishermen. Is it because of their size or the value of their payload that they believe they have the right-of-way?  Perhaps they just don’t understand; a lot of them are foreign ships so there’s a communication gap. Fishermen can’t call them and talk to them in Chinese so of course they hail them in English, to no avail. There is often very low visibility in the area and even with Automatic Identification System, (AIS) small vessels are still difficult to see on radar (or perhaps hard to distinguish a ship from a whale).  “I wish I had a picture of that whale stuck on the bow of that Maersk ship,” says Tom Robinson, President of the Qawalangin Tribe of Unalaska where Dutch Harbor acts as a maritime gateway to the world. The whale he is referring to was run over and killed and it was not the first. Horrific events have been happening for much too long. What will it take for changes to be made when our complaints fall on deaf ears? This is no longer ‘a matter of time’, it’s happening right now and has been happening in my back yard for years.
According to the Risk of Vessel Accidents and Spills in the Aleutian Islands, a special report by the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, during the past 15 years there have been 3,400 oil spills in the past 15 years (PDF).  Most of these are small but the report estimates there are up to 5 large ‘damaging’ spills every year. I don’t know how they define “damaging” and why they don’t consider the other 3000-plus “small” spills damaging. I have personally witnessed catastrophic maritime events over the years which have wreaked disaster upon our shores.
As Indigenous people in the region, we need to call the shots on the methodology of cleaning up those spills. With the increased value of organic foods, how can we say our Alaskan waters are pristine, after chemicals are dumped in the waster to disperse crude oil, every time there is an oil spill? Tom Robinson says “There needs to be an efficient, ecologically friendly oil spill response at a mechanical level, not using dispersant. We do not condone or approve of the use of oil-dispersant chemicals in our waters.” We acknowledge that these events are going to happen multiple times and at varying magnitudes in our very near future. We want to be prepared. We need to guarantee that the ecosystem will continue to produce as it has for thousands of years. We need to ensure that our communities can sustain a local economy where children won’t have to move away to have a better life.
Time and time again, our resources have been obliterated by outside merchants, yet our people have adapted as they always have. Our culture remains; our place in the world remains. In spite of the countless regulations placed upon us, we still find ways to harvest our foods. We still manage our own territory, though our voice is not always heard.

This article originally appeared in The Circle 02.15.
Despite its seemingly desolate landscape, the Arctic hosts an astounding diversity of species and habitats, and represents one of the most unique ecosystems on the planet. It is critically important to the biological, chemical and physical balance of the globe. Arctic biodiversity underpins planetary health and well-being, it contributes to the healthy functioning of the global ecosystem and is the foundation for many of the essential ecosystem functions and benefits on which we all depend. Dr. Braulio F. de Souza Dias says The Arctic Biodiversity Assessment, recently launched by Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF), the biodiversity working group of the Arctic Council, has made it very clear that Arctic biodiversity is being degraded.

Climate change is by far the most serious threat to Arctic biodiversity, exacerbating other threats such as ocean acidification, habitat degradation, pollution and, in some areas, unsustainable harvesting. The loss of biodiversity is expected to compromise the critical functions and benefits of Arctic ecosystems, with detrimental impacts on local livelihoods and lifestyles.
While climate change is the most significant driver of biodiversity loss, it is also expected to open up potentially significant economic opportunities in the Arctic, ranging from the opening of shipping routes to better accessibility of natural resources and decreasing costs for their extraction. We also know that the impacts of climate change on local livelihoods will not necessarily all be negative. Potential positive impacts might include higher summer salmon stocks, increased root and berry growth and larger whale populations. While net primary productivity may increase overall in the Arctic as a result of climate change, the effects of climate change on Indigenous peoples and local communities in the Arctic are very complex. Positive changes might cause further conflicts between traditional livelihoods and other land-use options. Managing change in the Arctic therefore requires full consideration of all environmental, socio-economic and cultural impacts, in particular on Indigenous peoples and local communities, as part of an ecosystem-based management approach.
The Arctic Biodiversity Assessment recommends “mainstreaming” biodiversity – that is, the incorporation of biodiversity objectives and provisions into ongoing and future international standards, agreements, plans, operations and/or other tools specific to development in the Arctic. This would include economic activities such as oil and gas development, shipping, fishing, tourism and mining. This is well in line with the first goal of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020, which calls for addressing the underlying causes of biodiversity loss.
However, for such mainstreaming to be effective, the methodology and language for achieving mainstreaming needs to resonate with economic decision-making – that is, with economic decision makers, because ultimately all decisions are taken by individuals. While a simple comparison of costs cannot and should not be the sole basis for deciding whether or not a development project should be undertaken, monetary gains and profits are nonetheless regularly considered against environmental impacts.
How, then, to generate such resonance? It is here that the work of the TEEB initiative, with its TEEB Arctic Scoping Study, can play an important role and add further value to the Arctic Biodiversity Assessment. Since its inception, one of the main objectives of the TEEB process has been to foster understanding between the economic and ecologic communities by integrating pertinent knowledge and methodologies in the evaluation of ecosystem services, using appropriate valuation methodologies, thus further operationalizing the concept of ecosystem services for human well-being that was developed and promoted under the 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.
When the global TEEB reports were launched in October 2010 at the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity, held in Nagoya, Japan, they generated significant interest. The reports were recognized as an important methodological tool for implementing the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020, and in particular Achi Biodiversity Target 2, which specifically calls for the integration of the manifold values of biodiversity, including economic values, into development and poverty reduction strategies and planning processes. In fact, the COP emphasized that increased knowledge of biodiversity and ecosystem services and the application of that knowledge are important tools for communicating and mainstreaming biodiversity, and invited the Parties to the Convention to make use of the TEEB study findings in order to make the case for investment for biodiversity and ecosystem services.
One of the stated goals of the TEEB initiative has been to examine the economic costs of biodiversity decline, and the costs and benefits associated with actions to reduce these losses. A basic premise of its work has been that valuation may be carried out in more or less explicit ways, depending on the situation at hand. Monetary valuation in particular is recognized as not always being necessary or appropriate – for example, when it is seen as contrary to cultural values or fails to reflect a plurality of values. At the same time, the open architecture of the TEEB approach provides interfaces with non-economic analysis and policy tools for effective interaction and synergy, such as the guidance adopted under the Convention related to Indigenous peoples and local communities. It is these features that make the TEEB approach so useful for the development of practical guidance for policymakers at the international, regional and local levels, in order to foster sustainable development and better conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity, including in the Arctic.
Dr. Braulio F. de Souza Dias is the executive secretary of the Convention on Biodiversity.

This article originally appeared in The Circle 02.15.
There is always a delicate dance between industries providing wealth for jurisdictions, and the potential harm they bring in the form of environmental impacts. This balance is particularly important in industries such as tourism. Ilja Leo Lang says sustainability measures are in place to protect the very ecosystem services the expedition cruise industry depends upon.
Ecosystem Services can be defined as the benefits society as a whole derives from nature. This is especially relevant when it comes to non-disturbance of animals and birds and non-material benefits such as the aesthetic value of a pristine, undisturbed Arctic environment.
The Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators (AECO) has a comprehensive set of guidelines for operators in the Arctic who strive to employ practices and procedures that are substantially more protective of the environment, local cultures and cultural remains than the current requirements by local, national and international regulations. AECO’s members coordinate and implement innovative technologies and measures to reduce the environmental impact of cruising.
AECO’s environmental industry standards are essentially the expedition cruise industry’s contribution to sustain Arctic ecosystem services and biodiversity.
For example, AECO is in the forefront of educating tourists about how to behave in the Arctic. This happens through AECO’s guidelines about responsible, environmentally friendly and safe tourism, and by communicating the importance of protecting the Arctic to visitors in order to create ‘Arctic Ambassadors’. AECO members work with visitors in order to influence the local communities in a constructive way. This involves making expedition cruise guests adhere to AECO’s sound environmental and cultural standards for operations in the Arctic. AECO visitors are for example asked to contribute to local communities by purchasing certified craft and souvenirs, not to pick flowers, take stones or build cairns and to ask permission of residents before taking photos.
AECO’s Executive Director, Frigg Jørgensen says, “Basic measures in regard to providing passengers and guests with a correct code of conduct are vital for the success in small communities. AECO’s new Animated Guidelines which allow visitors to the Arctic to educate themselves about safe, environmentally-friendly and considerate behavior has proven to be particularly successful.”
For the expedition cruise industry, protection of Arctic ecosystem services and biodiversity relies upon communication and research. One example of this is AECO’s decade-long involvement with the Clean-Up Svalbard Campaign which involves cruise tourists in Svalbard in cleaning up tons of sea-transported garbage from beaches around the Svalbard archipelago. Another example is the ongoing collaboration between AECO and researchers from a number of universities. Among AECO’s many self-imposed mandatory industry guidelines is a biosecurity guideline, which describes measures such as cleaning of clothes and washing of boots in order to prevent seeds and alien species from spreading throughout the Arctic.

There are many individuals, governments, private companies and organizations that share the common goal of making sure the Arctic is used in a sustainable way. All want to protect this pristine area from negative impact and preserve it for the future.
Arctic cruise tourism can be a driver for a better Arctic environment – if the individual operators get together and cooperate with other sectors to raise the bar in regard to sustainability, voluntary guidelines and the implementation of ambitious best practices.
If the tourism industry as a stakeholder is involved in closer dialogue and cooperation with other sectors, the potential for reducing the environmental impact of human activities in the Arctic is huge.
Read more about AECO’s guidelines for Arctic operations.
Ilja Leo Lang is with the Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators, an international organization for the expedition cruise industry, dedicated to responsible, environmentally friendly and safe tourism in the Arctic.

This article originally appeared in The Circle 02.15.
As the project to scope out the use of TEEB in the Arctic reaches completion, some Arctic states are undertaking a TEEB exercise on a national basis. Finn Katerås says in Norway important steps have been taken, but insufficient knowledge of Arctic ecosystems is a limitation.

In 2011 the Norwegian Government appointed an expert commission on values of ecosystem services to see how the economics of ecosystem services and biodiversity (TEEB) and the ecosystem services approach could be applied in Norway. The Commission was asked to describe the consequences for society of the degradation of ecosystem services, to identify how relevant knowledge can best be communicated to decision-makers, and to make recommendations about how greater consideration can be given to ecosystem services in private and public decision making.
It concluded that the ecosystem services approach can be a useful supplement to Norway’s environmental and resource management, to show more clearly why protecting nature is important to our well-being. The Commission argued that the values of ecosystem services must be better demonstrated and reflected in decision making, and that values in nature must be communicated through policy instruments, regulations and incentives.
The Commission concluded that the state of ecosystems in Norway is relatively good, but the country’s biological diversity and ecosystems are also under pressure from many directions. Important ecosystem services from Norwegian Arctic ecosystems include fish and seafood, biochemicals, genetic resources and nature-based tourism. The greatest threats to biological diversity and related ecosystem services in Arctic marine areas are climate change and ocean acidification.
The Commission pointed to the need for improved knowledge about biological diversity and ecosystem services in Norway, and made recommendations related to increased research and enhanced monitoring. It underlined that there is a need for more knowledge about Arctic ecosystems, where the effects of climate change, ocean acidification and environmental toxins will be particularly important.
In September 2013 the report was distributed for a broad public consultation among affected stakeholders, including authorities, business and industry, academic communities and non-governmental organizations. This consultation provides an important basis as the Norwegian Ministry of Climate and Environment is considering follow up on the commission’s report. Around 50 stakeholders submitted their views, but few of these explicitly discussed Arctic perspectives and challenges.
Several efforts are going on to recognize, demonstrate and capture values of biodiversity and ecosystem services in national policy and management. The Norwegian Environment Agency is for example involved in considering values of ecosystem services, including in socio-economic analysis, environmental impact assessments and planning efforts. Mapping and assessment of ecosystems may provide a better foundation and understanding for work with ecosystem services, and work has started on a larger assessment of Norwegian ecosystems and their services.
Statistics Norway is working on how national statistics and environmental accounts can better reflect ecosystems and ecosystem services, both at the national and the international level. The research community is increasing its focus on ecosystem services and on links between natural capital and human well-being, including through funding and development of research programs under the Norwegian Research Council.
Overall assessments and consideration of ecosystem services are reflected in several recent policy documents, including in the Government’s Reports to the Parliament and in national strategies related to climate change, public protection against floods and avalanches, seafood, adaptation to climate change, public health and outdoor recreation.
Further follow-up of the report on values of ecosystem services will be presented in the National Action Plan on Biodiversity. This action plan is part of Norwegian obligations under the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) and is to be presented by the Government as a Report to the Norwegian Parliament in 2015.
Questions related to economic instruments on ecosystem services may also be considered by the Green Tax Commission, which looks at how use of climate and environmental taxes can be used to secure lower greenhouse gas emissions, improved environmental conditions and sound economic growth. This commission will present its report to the Ministry of Finance in December 2015.
Norwegian authorities are also engaged in a number of international activities on TEEB-related issues, including in global, European, Arctic and Nordic settings. The TEEB Arctic Scoping Study is one example of this, giving national governments a valuable opportunity to share experiences and to understand more about opportunities and limitations in the ecosystem services approach.
Finn Katerås, is senior adviser, Norwegian Environment Agency, Trondheim, Norway