Confusion regarding ecosystem service (ES) terminology is broadly acknowledged, both within the MERP (Marine Ecosystems Research Programme) community and beyond. Given its infancy and interdisciplinary nature this is not surprising, but it is problematic when working in this field. To overcome this confusion it is worth taking a few minutes to consider the history of ES.
ecosystem service
University of Southampton: are ecosystem services academic?
Prof Martin Solan (of CBESS), Dr Clive Trueman and Dr Laura Grange are hosting a two day meeting at University of Southampton.
Bangor University : beetles and spiders
A year has gone so quickly, it seems no time at all since we were busy sampling spiders and beetles with our inverted leaf blower and taking huge cores of intact saltmarsh sediment, complete with plant roots and shoots, to use in our shoreline erosion-resistance studies!
CBESS/MASTS: new training opportunity
Thanks to the success of this year’s NERC funded training course in coastal field techniques, CBESS and MASTS running the course again in February 2015.
Summer 2014: a summer of socio-economics
This has been a summer of socio-economics for CBESS, with the second recreational stakeholder workshop being held in Barrow-in-Furness in May. The workshop was ran in collaboration with the Morecambe Bay Partnership, who found us the amazing Art Gene venue and did an excellent job of recruiting participants and promoting the event. Representatives from multiple recreational sectors attended from around the Morecambe Bay area and helped us understand how they use the bay recreationally.
Natural England: the ecosystem approach
Natural England is increasingly making use of the ecosystem approach in delivery of its work, especially at the landscape scale. We define ‘ecosystem approach’ as identifying the range of ways the natural environment provides benefits to society and engaging the beneficiaries in reaching decisions about the objectives and priorities for their environment.
BESS-ESPA: framing ecosystem services
The UK’s Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) and Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service Sustainability (BESS) programmes are holding a one-day event in London to bring together our research communities and users of research to discuss ways of framing the ways that ecosystem services deliver benefits to society.
You will be able to stream the event live, if you are unable to make it. Please go to the BESS News Page for more info.
CBESS-NRW Coastal Workshop
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service Sustainability in salt marsh to mudflat landscapes.
This workshop is meant as a show and tell, and a view to the future, in regards to research on, and management activities related to, salt marsh to mudflat landscapes; in particular that concerning ecosystem functioning and ecosystem services (human benefits from ecosystems).
BBC Radio Cumbria
Martin Lewes of BBC Radio Cumbria interviews Prof. David Paterson whilst sampling at Cartmel Sands in Morecambe Bay.
BESS Start-up Meeting
CBESS and the three other BESS consortia met up in London for two days of sharing ideas and best practice.