II CONFERENCE OF THE PROGRAMME ON ECOSYSTEM CHANGE AND SOCIETY
WORKSHOPS
PWKSP-3
NO MORE SILOS: RE-CONNECTING RESEARCHERS, POLICY MAKERS, ECOSYSTEMS AND SOCIETY
Date: 8-Nov-17
Time: 12.30 – 14.00
Chair: Christo Fabricius
The workshop's objectives are to 1) critically evaluate the evidence that connected, co-created solutions lead to more sustainable pathways for ecosystems and society; and 2) learn about approaches, processes and methods that may strengthen or weaken the linkages between researchers, policy makers, ecosystems and society.
The workshop will address two main questions: 1) Do co-created solutions lead to transformative pathways to sustainability for ecosystems and society? How does this happen? 2) Which engagement approaches, processes and methods strengthen or weaken the linkages between researchers, policy makers, ecosystems and society?
The workshop will consist of speed talks and posters, interspersed by a small number of thought-provoking conceptual presentations to set the scene and frame the subsequent interaction. The vision is that the workshop will contribute to a book or alternatively a Special Issue (or both) on 'Breaking down the silos: processes and methods to close the gap between researchers, policy makers and society'.
Any scholar, researcher, policy maker, resource user or community worker with an interest in collaborative processes will be glad they attended this workshop. Authors with stories to share or who have comparative data about methods, processes and approaches and their outcomes are welcome to attend.
speakers
-
Dismantling silos: a conflict resolution perspective
Lyn Snodgrass
-
The role of adaptive management in defragmenting conservation knowledge
Dirk Roux
-
Grasping vulnerability transfers in global change adaptations combining fun-mindfulness exercises and serious games
Chloé Guerbois
-
Knowing when to break down silos: principles for enhancing the transformative capacity of social-ecological systems
Christo Fabricius
PWKSP-4
ECOSYSTEM SERVICES AS A CONCEPTUAL FRAME FOR UNPACKING THE VALUE OF PROTECTED AREAS: EMERGING THEMES AND POLICY OPPORTUNITIES
Date: 10-Nov-17
Time: 12.30 – 14.00
Chair: Alta De Vos
The session will draw on research from different contexts to highlight major themes that have emerged from trying to understand ecosystem service flows from protected areas. It will reflect on the implications of these highlighted themes for how protected areas are managed, as well as how they contribute to social-ecological resilience from local to global scales, and help to achieve sustainability targets. Questions addressed might include: 1. What is the role of protected areas to keep the planet ticking? 2. What are the benefits and drawbacks of using the ecosystem service framework to highlight the value of protected areas to society? 3. How do benefits from protected areas flow across scales to different stakeholders? 4. How can policy and park management plans better incorporate ecosystem services (particularly cultural ecosystem services)? 5. How can protected area research inform ecosystem service categories and measurement of ecosystem services towards sustainability targets?
The overall objectives of the workshop will be to: 1. Synthesise lessons from social-ecological protected area research that have used the ecosystem service frame to unpack the value of protected areas 2. Explore different perspectives on the role of protected area in attaining ecological sustainability, and meeting sustainability targets 3. Identify emerging themes and explore the implications of identified themes and lessons for management and policy 4. Develop an agenda of social-ecological ecosystem-service focused protected area research 5. Explore potential platforms for achieving said research agenda
speakers
-
Ecosystem Services as a lens for understanding the value of Protected areas
Graeme Cumming
-
Ecosystem services as a conceptual frame for unpacking the value of protected areas: emerging themes and policy opportunities from southern Africa
Alta De Vos
-
Implementation of the Ecosystem Services Approach in German Biosphere Reserves
Tobias Plieninger
-
Ecosystem Services in the Eye of the Beholders and their Local Community
Xavier Basurto
PWKSP-7
ON SPEAKING A TRANSDISCIPLINARY LANGUAGE: PATHWAYS FOR KNOWLEDGE INTEGRATION IN SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL CHANGE RESEARCH
Date: 10-Nov-17
Time: 12.30 – 14.00
Chairs: Gabriela Alonso-Yanez, Lily House-Peters & Marcella Ohira
The primary objective of this workshop is to actively engage participants in conversations to promote learning on transdisciplinary (TD) approaches to integrating science and policy for sustainability. The growing focus on producing actionable socio-environmental science has led to a rise in collaborative research, requiring the integration of both scientists from a range of disciplines and non-academic stakeholders, such as policy- and decision-makers. The workshop will enable participants to experience scenarios faced by members of scientific and non-scientific communities when collaborating with diverse sectors and institutions.
The workshop curriculum will focus on pathways for knowledge integration (i.e. achieving common vocabulary, concepts, and understandings) and introducing tools and best-practices to guide transdisciplinary team interactions to facilitate the production of science and policy for action-oriented sustainability outcomes. These tools will include hands-on activities for guiding effective collaboration and building empathy among diverse team members. The workshop will address the following topics: 1. Reasons why transdisciplinary research is important for global sustainability 2. Sharing successful examples of transdisciplinary projects 3. Working with adaptive team capacities, such as intercultural competencies and design thinking
speakers
-
How to foster transdisciplinary projects through capacity building
Marcella Ohira
-
Collaboration as a learning process: lessons from education and design thinking
Gabriela Alonso-Yanez
-
The Key Roles of Transdisciplinary Collaboration for Achieving Global Sustainability Targets
Lily House-Peters
PWKSP-8
(HOW) CAN THE ECOSYSTEM SERVICES FRAMEWORK FOSTER AGROECOLOGICAL TRANSITIONS FOR SUSTAINABILITY?
Date: 8-Nov-17
Time: 12.30 – 14.00
Chairs: Alta De Vos
Agroecology can foster the resilience of rural territories. Agroecological practices are based on optimizing ecosystem services at the landscape, farm, and parcel scales. The potential of integrated ecosystem service assessments to support this transition remains largely underexplored, although their ability to build shared territorial perspectives is widely recognised. Our objective is to discuss how the ecosystem service framework can support the understanding, design and steering of agroecological transitions. After briefly presenting some conceptual frameworks that aim at linking ES and agroecology, we plan a world-café structured around three specific questions listed below, to draft a generic list of recommendations on how to use the ES framework for agricultural transformations. A position paper will follow-up.
The overall question that will be asked in this workshop is “what is the potential of the ecosystem service framework to support agroecological transitions”? We propose to break up this question into three parts:
1) What is the potential of the ecosystem service framework to support the understanding of agroecological transitions? What is the specificity of agroecological systems in terms of ES? How can this be assessed? How can we use the ES concept to evaluate a system being transformed to agroecology?
2) What is the potential of the ES framework to support the design of agroecological transitions? Specifically, how can agroecological systems be designed to optimize ES delivery for landscape actors?
3) What is the potential of the ES framework to support the steering of agroecological transitions? Specifically, can an integrated and participatory ES valuation help foster agroecological dynamics at the landscape level?
We aim at gathering an as broad as possible range of participants, coming from a diversity of background and countries. Participants could come from science, civil society or policy, and have an interest for ES and/or agricultural issues. The idea is to gather a broad diversity of viewpoints in order to ensure the genericity of the recommendations. The session is expected to lead to a position paper that will be coordinated by the sessions’ leaders. Ideally, participants should be willing to go through the writing process that will follow the session, but this is not a prerequisite for participation.
PWKSP-9
Natural Assets –
where do science and society need to go?
Date: 8-Nov-17
Time: 12.30 – 14.00
Chairs: Hannah Moersberger, Ariane de Bremond, Cornelia Krug, Davnah Payne, Eva Spehn, and Bob Scholes
Future Earth is currently developing a Knowledge-Action Network (KAN) on “Natural Assets”. The network aims to facilitate and enable co-designed, integrated, action-oriented research and synthesis towards the sustainable and fair stewardship of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems that underpin human well-being. The notion of Natural Assets has different meanings for different people and communities. For this reason, Future Earth endeavours to co-develop a conceptual framework such that various scientific communities and societal actors can effectively work together to mobilize and further agendas for transformative research and action.
We invite participants to join this process of co-designing an innovative, integrated and inclusive conceptual framework for the Natural Assets Knowledge-Action Network, and thereby contribute to on-going efforts by Future Earth and the KAN development team to lay the foundation for future activities and for tackling pressing societal challenges. Development team members will be on hand for this event.
This session builds on the outcomes of a Future Earth Natural Assets workshop held at the University of Bern, Switzerland, in September 2017, which marked the first of a series of such workshops. Co-organized by the Swiss Future Earth Global Research Projects (GLP, GMBA, bioDISCOVERY, and PAGES), the Swiss Academy of Sciences, and the Future Earth Secretariat, this workshop brought together respected scholars from across the sciences to develop a shared understanding of the Natural Assets conceptual framework, as an input into the KAN development process.
PWKSP-10
JUST BENEFIT FLOWS: UNDERSTANDING WHO BENEFITS FROM ECOSYSTEM SERVICES FOR EQUITABLE, RESILIENT AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
Date: 8-Nov-17
Time: 15.00 – 17.00
Chairs: Jeanne Nel, Nadia Sitas and Natalia Perez Harguindeguy
Benefits from ecosystem services flow through diverse pathways, and are not necessarily distributed equitably across social-ecological systems. Benefits might flow to influential or politically-strong groups rather than to more marginalised rural communities. They may be accessed in situ, or contribute substantially to development needs that are a far distance away. Identifying those who benefit from ecosystem services and understanding how benefits are distributed among individuals and stakeholder groups, and across spatial and temporal scales, is a prerequisite for equitable, resilient and sustainable development. The ecoSERVICES community, a core project of Future Earth, would like to draw together PECS members to tackle the following objectives: 1. Explore methods for assessing winners and losers of ecosystem service benefits, and the power dynamics that shape such social-ecological trade-offs 2. Explore methods that ensure that local dynamics of ecosystem service benefit flows are not lost in global assessments (e.g. IPBES and SDGs).
The workshop will be structured around four positioning presentations, followed by small group discussions in world café format. The positioning presentations will provide contextual background through:
-
two local examples of ecosystem benefit flows and power asymmetries (Tim Daw and Georgina Cundill);
-
some thoughts on addressing social power relations in ecosystem service assessment (Unai Pascual); and
-
perspectives on the challenges of incorporating social relations in ecosystem service assessments across scales (Berta Martín-López).
PWKSP-11
NWHAT HAVE WE LEARNED ABOUT POVERTY AND ECOSYSTEM SERVICES FROM DIVERSE EMPIRICAL ASSESSMENTS OF HUMAN WELLBEING? IMPLICATIONS FOR SES DYNAMICS
Date: 8-Nov-17
Time: 12.30 – 14.00
Chairs: Tomas Chaigneau
We will assemble representatives of a new wave of ecosystem service (ES) research that not only measures supplies or benefits from ESs, but that explicitly and empirically measures, assesses or analyses multidimensional human wellbeing through a contrasting range of methods and data. The workshop will reflect on how different conceptual and methodological approaches to wellbeing illuminate particular aspects of the ES-wellbeing relationship and insights into the mechanisms of social-ecological system dynamics. The session will draw on of research from the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) programme and the Southern Africa Partnership on Ecosystem Change and Society (SAPECS).
Quantitative, qualitative, objective and subjective methods across many case studies highlight the plethora of links between ES and WB. But what does this mean with regards to social-ecological system trajectories, resilience and opportunities for poverty alleviation? The many links between ecosystem services and wellbeing, may not be important for the poor, or may differ for those that need it most.
Through presentations of different case studies and output from a recent ecosystem service/wellbeing GRAID workshop, we will investigate the main gaps in wellbeing and ecosystem services research and the challenges that occur when carrying out such work. The session will reflect on how different conceptual and methodological approaches to wellbeing illuminate particular aspects of the ES-wellbeing relationship and insights into social-ecological system dynamics. We will also discuss the processes through which ecosystem services are thought to contribute to different dimensions of wellbeing and the consequent implications of this for the biosphere and social ecological systems. This therefore will lead us into a conversation around the dynamic nature of the ecosystem services and wellbeing relationship.
The workshop will involve presentations of output from a recent GRAID workshop on wellbeing (Vanessa Masterson, Maria Tengö, Tim Daw) and three case studies from Eastern and Southern Africa operating at different scales:
-
Tomas Chaigneau: Understand the processes through which ecosystem services contribute to wellbeing – ESPA SPACES project
-
Susanne Vetter: Culture inextricably entwined with nature: cultural ecosystem services and wellbeing in the Eastern Cape, South Africa
-
Odirilwe Selomane: The usefulness of existing survey data in quantifying ecosystem services contribution to wellbeing across space and time
Each case study will have 10 mins to present their findings and think specifically about the topics mentioned above. We will then provide an overview and synthesise these findings to help encourage a 15 min discussion at different round tables hosted by each of the participants.
The discussions may span a variety of topics and a few questions may be asked as probes including interrogating the relationship between the methodology and the findings. What are the blind spots and insights from each of these methods? Which approaches can offer us a perspective on feedbacks and system dynamics and poverty alleviation pathways.
PWKSP-13
OPERATIONALIZING TOOLS AND STRATEGIES FOR SUSTAINABLE CITIES IN SMALL TO MEDIUM SIZED CITIES
Date: 8-Nov-17
Time: 12.30 - 14.00
Chair: Luis-Bernardo Vazquez
Latinamerica is the world's most urbanized continent but still experiences urban growth and sprawl. Following the global trend, the development is mostly taking place in small to medium-sized cities, which also have the least resources to deal with the growth and the increasing environmental burden. The cities are often located in highly biodiversity- and culturally rich areas, as are the examples of San Cristóbal de las Casas, México; Fortaleza, Brazil; and Santa Marta, Colombia. Several tools such as Green Area Factor, Environmental Impact Assessment, and Resilience Assessment; and strategies such as public-private partnerships, conscious urban design (nudging), and inclusive planning processes exist to support the transformation to more sustainable and resilient cities. However, implementation is often lacking beyond large- or megacities. Responding to the Conference's overarching theme of context-specific pathways to sustainability, the proposed session invites experts on tools and strategies in small to medium-sized cities primarily in Latin America.
The workshop aims to identify key tools and strategies for supporting the transformation to more sustainable, resilient urban development trajectories in Latin America. It wants to encourage discussion on how the size and social-economic-ecological context of cities may influence the suitability of tools and strategies for implementation, and identify context-specific constraints and adaptation strategies for supporting implementation.
The workshop will be structured around a series of speedtalks, plenary discussions and break-out group discussions. We will end by creating a joint vision, presented as text or drawing, of a sustainable, resilient city in the future, along with key points on what is missing today in the toolbox.
Speedtalks:
-
Green Maps for Changing Communities
Wendy Brawer
-
Contribution of the Quantity and Quality of Green Infrastructure for the construction of Resilience in Small and Medium-Sized Cities: A case from Mexico’s Pueblos Mágicos
Laura Elisa Quiroz Rosas
-
Adolescents as factors of change towards the sustainability of the city of Irapuato, Guanajuato through environmental education and the green map
Paulina Uribe Morfin
-
Resilience assessment: a useful approach to navigate urban sustainability challenges
My Sellberg