WELCOME FROM THE PROJECT LEADER

This edition of CORRESPONDENCE has an international flavour featuring overseas visits, visitors and collaboration. These interactions are helping to put Australia on the map as a leader in the concept and application of Ecosystem Services.

New developments

The Canberra group has two new projects in the pipeline; so stay tuned as we move into the next phase of the project! We welcome a new staff member, Roel Plant from the Netherlands, taking the position of Systems Modeller.

Project update

Closer to home the Markets Project is well underway with Stuart Whitten and Dave Shelton having visited the Goulburn Broken and Murrumbidgee Catchments and Blackwood Basin. These meetings have resulted in all three regions confirming their commitment to the project, and preliminary identification of potential market pilot projects. They have also been involved in several proposals for funding under the Markets Based Instruments (MBI) initiative. A number of these made it through the first round with more detailed applications now submitted. The Markets Project website has been significantly updated to reflect these developments.

The publications section of the web is growing as staff attend conferences both in Australia and overseas. We've also added a fact sheets section including general project information and updates. We hope to add others as case studies reach completion.

The final report for the Goulburn-Broken case study is taking shape - one reason why we have been so quiet over the last six months. The whole team is contributing to this milestone and it promises to keep us busy over the coming months whilst we finish writing up and plan the launch in June.

The drought and fires, and floods in some places, have been reminding us about our relationships with our wonderful but unforgiving land. From an ecosystem services perspective I think the lessons are about increasing our understanding of and adapting better to these processes, rather than trying to impose more controls over them. Our thoughts are with the many people who have been affected.
With best wishes for 2003.

Nick Abel

Return to top

NEW STAFF PROFILE

Name: Roel Plant

Position: Systems Researcher with CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Gungahlin

Background: After obtaining a MSc in Physical Geography from Utrecht University (The Netherlands) and a brief stint as an army officer, I took up a PhD position at Wageningen University. I studied the effects of regional land use change - clearing tropical forest for the establishment of cash crop plantations - on the cycling of nutrients between the soil and atmosphere using laughing gas (N2O) as an indicator. That's not the sort of research you'd do in chilly Holland, so I travelled to Costa Rica, collaborating with an inspiring research group from the U.S. Then, tempted by the mystic world of economics, I found employment at Statistics Netherlands where I worked on regionalizing innovation investment figures for small and medium enterprises. My next job was at the TNO (the Dutch equivalent of CSIRO), where I worked on nutrient fluxes again (atmospheric nitrogen deposition), and gained experience in triple bottom line decision support focussing on contaminated industrial locations. In early 2002 I came across the vacancy for this position, which had it all: the economics, the systems analysis, the regional focus, the nutrients, the water. The job description awakened my long-fostered dream to live and work abroad for a while…..and the rest is history.

Current research activities: Developing an input-output model for the Goulburn Broken catchment in Victoria. The idea is to include water use and pollution in a matrix against cost of production to obtain water multipliers. These multipliers can be used to analyse the effects of different catchment strategies on the quality and quantity of water.

What do you like best about your work?: I love the social environment and the freedom you get at CSIRO. There's a lot of interesting science going on here, it is an inspiring place to work!

Return to top

VISITING SCIENTIST BRINGS EXPERT KNOWLEDGE

Martin Drechsler from the German government's Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in Leipzig visited CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems recently to help us in some of the decision analysis work in the Ecosystem Services Project. The main purpose of the visit was to contribute to the risk analysis of various proposed scenarios for the Goulburn Broken Catchment of Victoria. In addition, Dr Drechsler has developed a software package that can be used for decision analysis under uncertainty and we employed this in the scenarios assessment work in the upper catchment.
Martin's field of research is in ecological modelling, with a focus on:

• Conservation Decision Analysis in the presence of uncertainty and goal conflicts
• Multicriteria Decision Analysis for water resource management under uncertainty
• Ecological-economic modelling for conservation biology

He has had extensive experience in working with stakeholders and assessing future land-use scenarios using developed software in the Spree River Catchment (that incorporates the Berlin area) of Germany. This study was similar to the Ecosystem Services Project, investigating water resource management, with a particular focus on participatory processes and the development of policies and scenarios for sustainable land-use.

Return to top

OVERSEAS ANTICS - SPREADING THE WORD ON THE AUSTRALIAN ECOSYSTEM SERVICES PROJECT

Capturing the Value of Ecosystem Services: Developing Markets for Environmental Assets.

London, England 13 - 14 March 2002

Tokyo, Japan 05 - 06 November 2002

Hosted by Forest Trends and the Katoomba Group and sponsored by some of the world's industrial 'heavies', these ongoing meetings provided a forum for bringing together pioneer market developers with early-stage investors, analysts and risk managers. The Katoomba Group process began in 1999 in Australia and is helping to develop an understanding of the interplay of public and private sector benefits created by natural asset markets.

In London Dave Shelton gave a comprehensive presentation on the then proposed Markets for Ecosystem Services Project. He obviously made an impact as he was invited to speak again at Katoomba V, Tokyo, Japan in November. Here he was interested to hear about the ecosystem services payment schemes actually operating in other countries, particularly developing countries and alternative approaches to conservation finance. This trip generated many useful contacts & inputs to the project as well as lifting our profile.

International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE) Conference.

Sousse, Tunisia 6 - 9 March 2002

Wendy Proctor, a Lady Southey Post Doctoral Fellow, travelled to Europe in March 2002 to attend three conferences and to meet with other researchers. At the first of these in Sousse, Wendy presented a paper co-authored by the Ecosystem Services Project team entitled Assessing Ecosystem Services in Australia in a session devoted to practical studies of Multi-criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA).

The other papers presented covered participatory multi-criteria evaluations of water issues in Germany, Greece, Norway and Hungary. These papers are to be presented in a special edition of the journal: Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, published in London by Pion Press. The paper is contained in the proceedings of the conference and available on the conference website http://www.ecoleconeurope.org/ISEEtunisia2002.html

55th Meeting of the European Working Group on Multicriteria Aid for Decisions - 'Nature in and Nature of MCDA' .

Leipzig, Germany 14 - 16 March

Held at the UFZ (Centre for Environmental Research) in Leipzig, Germany this smaller conference focused on the theory and practice of Multi-criteria Decision Analysis and, in particular, in applications to natural resource issues. Wendy's presentation highlighted the deliberative multi-criteria framework that she has developed as the basis of the decision-making in the Goulburn Broken case study of the Project. Other papers presented at this conference ranged from participatory approaches being developed with respect to waste elimination to incorporating theories of fuzzy logic into MCDA.

"The most significant part of this conference was meeting the 'founding father' of Multi-criteria Decision Analysis, Professor Bernard Roy from the Universite Paris-Dauphine, France and being able to discuss with him our project and the approach that we are taking." said Dr Proctor.

12th Workshop of the German Operations Research Working Group - 'Decision Theory and Practice'

Stuttgart, Germany 2 1- 23 March

Another smaller workshop at the University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart was heavily focused on contributions about the theoretical basis of decision theory with many different types of applications including those related to decisions about natural resources. Wendy made a similar presentation to the one in Leipzig covering the general nature of our project but concentrating on the decision-making framework that is to be employed. The proceedings of this conference will be published in a book later this year and we have been invited to submit our paper which will be translated into German.

Munich, Germany 12th and 19th March

Taking advantage of time between the conferences in Germany Wendy had meetings on the GLOWA - Danube Project at the Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU) and the Institute for Economic Research (IFO). Wendy met with the researchers involved in this large multidisciplinary study, looking at future water management scenarios for the Danube River Catchment in Europe, to learn about the methods employed in each of the different analyses and the practical management and integration of such a large, multidisciplinary study conducted over so many different organisations and researchers.

Return to top

CSIRO MCMASTER FELLOWSHIP SPONSORS INTERNATIONAL COLLABORATION

Jim Salzman has done important research on New York's drinking water, where the city has decided to invest in catchment protection rather than a new filtration facility, saving approximately US$7 billion.

The McMaster Fellowship augments a planned sabbatical in Australia and will allow Jim to spend significant time with the Markets for Ecosystem Services Project at CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, interact widely with project partners as well as help to secure further projects. The objective of the fellowship is to examine, and make recommendations for the improvement of interactions among factors currently promoting or hindering the protection of key ecosystem services. These include: legal requirements; property protections & rights; land use regulations; market subsidies; market functions; policies and institutions.

Educated at Harvard and Yale, Jim has worked as an advisor for US Trade and is currently the principal investigator on a large US EPA grant (with Paul Ehrlich and Gretchen Daily) integrating legal, ecological and economic research on ecosystem services (Stanford Environmental Law Journal, 2001). He is a co-author on the most widely used textbook in its field (101 Schools, 13 countries) "International Environmental Law and Policy" (Foundation Press). He has published nine journal articles on ecosystem services along with many articles and reports on global labour rights, eco-labelling; human dominated ecosystems, industrial ecology, corporate strategy and endangered species.

Return to top

ECOSYSTEM SERVICES SUPPORTS FUTURES ARENA DEVELOPMENT AT LAND AND WATER AUSTRALIA

Land and Water Australia has initiated a new program and our own Steve Cork has taken a 2 year secondment to the position of Futures Specialist. The position is an exciting opportunity within LWA, having primary responsibility for developing this new Arena of activity within the R&D portfolio. The task will require Steve to work with Australia's best creative thinkers and futurists, to develop a robust plan of research investments, to engage the interest of key stakeholders, and to significantly raise the capacity for futures thinking within LWA and more broadly in natural resource management. Steve remains in contact with the Ecosystem Services Project and we look forward to many fruitful collaborations.

Return to top

INTERNATIONAL PEOPLE PROFILE

Name: J. Marty Anderies

Position: Assistant Professor, Biology Department and Center for Environmental Studies, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona.

Background: Ph.D. Applied Mathematics.

Research background: Growth, demographics and the environment, ritual, taboos and environmental management, resilience-based management perspectives, uncertainty, human behavior and the environment (subsistence and institutional adaptation).

Current research activities: Robust management and scenarios for the Goulburn Broken Catchment, southeastern Australia, self organizing community resource governance, the evolution of resource governance rules, resilience in "deep time" (i.e. long time scale resilience, examination of archaeological case studies). Optimal sunk costs, technological change, and environmental management.

What do you like most about your work?: Meeting fascinating people.

Return to top

ECOSYSTEM EXCERPTS

The string 'ecosystem services' returned over 397,000 hits worldwide and over 13,000 Australian hits in a Google search, our website featuring prominently. The same search in Yahoo returned 361,000 world wide and 104,000 Australian hits.

Since its release last February The Ecosystem Services Project website has recorded a steady increase in visitors, including several international inquiries through the feedback page. The largest geographical region to visit the site is North America.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION:

© COPYRIGHT 2003 CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems. To the extent permitted by law, all rights are reserved and no part of these publications covered by copyright may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means except with the written permission of CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems.

DISCLAIMER: To the extent permitted by law, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems (including its employees and consultants) excludes all liability to any person for any consequences, including but not limited to all losses, damages, costs, expenses and any other compensation, arising directly or indirectly from using these publications (in part or in whole) and any information or material contained in them.

This publication is subject to CSIRO legal notice and disclaimer

You can unsubscribe from the Ecosystem Services Newsletter by sending a message to ecosystem.services@cse.csiro.au

ERRATUM

In the last issue of CORRESPONDENCE the URL for our feature in RipRap was incorrect and should read: Ecosystem Services Project featured in RipRap http://www.rivers.gov.au/publicat/riprap/riprap21.htm

Return to top