jmhullot; flickr.com Nepal’s rich biodiversity and its varied ecosystems provide vital services and livelihoods for most poor people Zoom In

Assessing Nepal's natural benefits

02-07-2010

Bird Conservation Nepal (Birdlife Partner) and BirdLife International with funding from the UK government's Darwin Initiative programme, have embarked on a three-year project to assess and monitor ecosystem services – the benefits – that nature provides.

Natural ecosystems provide us with a range of benefits including the production of food and clean water, and the control of climate, on which human lives depend. In 2005, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) reported that more than 60% of these benefits, referred to as ecosystem services, are in decline. Biodiversity loss, leading to ecosystem degradation, can disrupt and diminish ecosystem services with severe economic, social and environmental impacts on people.  

Despite the importance of ecosystem services to humans, and their worrying decline, there is a lack of information that can inform decision-making. What information there is tends to be based on broad scale, global analyses, using rough proxy measures from remote sensing or on intensive and expensive measures at a few sites.

With support from other institutions: the Cambridge Conservation Initiative (including Cambridge University, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and UNEP's World Conservation Monitoring Centre) and Kings College London, the aim is to develop a site-focused, participatory, robust and inexpensive methodology that will complement the current system for monitoring Important Bird Areas (IBAs), work that is already undertaken by Birdlife Partners worldwide. 

Dr Hum Gurung (CEO of Bird Conservation Nepal) presented the project to other Asian BirdLife Partners at a recent meeting in Taipei, Taiwan illustrating how BCN plans to share their experiences of this work. 

"This pilot project will have greater impact if we can demonstrate how ecosystem services can significantly help the poor communities whilst also conserving biodiversity", said Dr Hum Gurung - CEO of Bird Conservation Nepal.

Nepal's birdlife is among the richest in Asia, with 862 species recorded to date, 31 of which are globally threatened. There are six distinct biomes ranging from alpine to lowland habitats and including many forest types and internationally important wetlands and grasslands. Many of these areas are under threat from agricultural expansion, pollution, overharvesting and climate change. 

Nepal's rich biodiversity and its varied ecosystems provide vital services and livelihoods for most poor people. A progressive body of legislation and policy enshrines the rights of communities to manage their resources to maximise benefits, resulting in, for example, more than 14,000 Forest User Groups. However, exercising these rights is difficult because of lack of information on the condition and trends of biodiversity and associated ecosystem services, and impacts of management. This limits communities' ability to engage in informed dialogue with government, and restricts government’s ability to support effective conservation and improved livelihoods. This project will provide practical solutions to these constraints and build capacity nationally to assess and value ecosystem services.

"This pilot project will have greater impact if we can demonstrate how ecosystem services can significantly help the poor communities whilst also conserving biodiversity" —Dr Hum Gurung, Bird Conservation Nepal

In May, the inaugural workshop for the Project was held in the UK in collaboration with the Cambridge Conservation Initiative. Over 30 experts attended this two day event where the process of developing an assessment tool for ecosystem services was initiated. 

"There is a need to produce simple, robust, and scientifically sound guidelines for the monitoring and assessment of ecosystem services at the local and national level", said Jenny Birch, Darwin Project Manager and BirdLife's Ecosystem Services Officer. "It’s going to be a challenge, but with support from the Darwin Initiative, input from experienced scientists, and field testing by BCN, we have an exciting opportunity to undertake this."

"Many people get hung up on the problems encountered in applying economic values to ecosystem services. The real importance of the ecosystem approach is to show what we would lose as a society if these ecosystems were destroyed. Monetising these services will enable us to highlight the great intrinsic value of nature and to present the scientific information to policy makers in a form that they can more easily relate to and less easily ignore."

Key ecosystem services will be documented at three pilot sites (IBAs) and data collected on forest (including carbon) and hydrological ecosystem services in order to undertake an economic cost-benefit analysis of conservation/sustainable management versus alternative land-uses. A rapid review of all 27 IBAs in Nepal will also be undertaken.

The main output of this work will be to produce and disseminate guidelines for ecosystem service assessment and monitoring, and to deliver well-tailored training for national Partners in Asia and globally on collecting and using information on ecosystem services for conservation planning and advocacy. Maintaining ecosystem services is fundamental to achieving the aims of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Providing such methods would be a substantial step forward in supporting Nepal, and other CBD Parties in the developing world, to fulfil and report on their CBD obligations.