A public dialogue project on the character, causes and consequences of ecosystem change in the UK and their implications for policy development
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Exeter
Department Name: Politics
Abstract
This project implements a programme of public dialogue on the methods, analyses and recommendations of the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (UK NEA, 2011) and its recent follow on work (NEAFO). The UK NEA/NEAFO draws together a wealth of scientific evidence on the character, causes and consequences of ecosystem change and many of the concepts it deploys are central to future applications of natural and social science research. Yet government knows very little about how this path-breaking work reflects wider public aspirations and concerns about the natural environment, and how it is valued and managed.
The purpose of this dialogue project is thus to engage publics in a process of critically inspecting the concepts and key scientific findings of the NEA/NEAFO and their real and emerging applications in environmental decision making. Within this, the project considers the extent to which the policy response options reviewed by the NEA/NEAFO are considered credible by publics in the light of present challenges and future risks.
The dialogue process involves approximately 120 members of the general public interacting with policy and scientific researchers through a series of Regional Citizen Panels across the UK to evaluate NEA/NEAFO findings in a local context. The outcomes of this process will feed into a National Citizen Panel, where a cross section of dialogue participants will interact further with NEA stakeholders to refine and prioritize areas for the future development and application of NEA/NEAFO concepts and evidence.
The purpose of this dialogue project is thus to engage publics in a process of critically inspecting the concepts and key scientific findings of the NEA/NEAFO and their real and emerging applications in environmental decision making. Within this, the project considers the extent to which the policy response options reviewed by the NEA/NEAFO are considered credible by publics in the light of present challenges and future risks.
The dialogue process involves approximately 120 members of the general public interacting with policy and scientific researchers through a series of Regional Citizen Panels across the UK to evaluate NEA/NEAFO findings in a local context. The outcomes of this process will feed into a National Citizen Panel, where a cross section of dialogue participants will interact further with NEA stakeholders to refine and prioritize areas for the future development and application of NEA/NEAFO concepts and evidence.
Planned Impact
The public dialogue project exercise will help inform implementation of the Defra Natural Environment White Paper as well as influence Research Council decisions, projects and programmes, addressing issues such as the links between human health and wellbeing and ecosystem services. The work will also provide valuable background input for Foresight studies and TSB initiatives. Other LWEC partners likely to benefit include the funders of the NEAFO, the Department of Health, Forestry Commission, Natural England, equivalent bodies in devolved administrations and the Department for Communities and Local Government and its associated local authorities. The outcomes of the public dialogue will have particular relevance to the specific departmental policy developments including:
* Defra: The Department is committed in particular to embedding UK NEA science in a range of policy areas as part of its Action Plan for embedding an 'ecosystems approach' in to decision making. This includes the development of payment for ecosystem services schemes, the piloting of biodiversity offsetting, the delivery of 'Local Nature Partnerships' and large scale nature restoration projects, such as the 'Nature Improvement Areas'.
* Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG): Better understanding and engagement with science may lead to more efficient approaches to environmental management through improved understandings of the opportunity spaces within the National Planning Policy framework including the recognition of value of ecosystem services and through the delivery of the localism agenda within neighbourhood plans and wider championing of community ownership of assets and services. The 'golden thread' of sustainable development will also have a stronger more robust policy framework which will increasingly be used in planning decisions and consultations in the absence of any statutory plan.
* Department of Business Innovation and Skills: Better understanding and engagement with the Local Enterprise Partnerships who are now assuming strategic planning roles. The linkages with local planning authorities are being developed set within novel ideas of a single funding pot for delivery. At the heart of these should be the recognition of the environment as a key asset in delivery of economic growth.
* Department of Energy and Climate Change: One of the policy contexts in which the UK NEA science sits is to link issues of ecosystems change to wider debates of energy security and responses to climate change.
In addition the dialogue work will build on and complement the public dialogue work that Sciencewise has already supported through the LWEC Citizen's Advisory Forum and the Natural England Nature Improvement Areas public dialogues. The LWEC Advisory Forum (July 2010 to March 2011) focused on climate change and flooding but one of its recommendations was that public engagement should be supported at an 'up-stream' level, where research strategies are still emergent, and where the maturity of an agenda allows the public to consider a broader range of possible solutions and approaches with greater rationality (as in the NEAFO). The Natural England Nature Improvement Areas public dialogues have just begun (April 2013 to March 2015) and present a more devolved model of public dialogue with engagement being co-ordinated by local partnerships and focusing specifically on biodiversity and local management strategies. The NEAFO dialogue work will take a more structured methodology and look at a wider range set of issues, and it will be interesting to compare findings as the projects progress along a similar timeline.
* Defra: The Department is committed in particular to embedding UK NEA science in a range of policy areas as part of its Action Plan for embedding an 'ecosystems approach' in to decision making. This includes the development of payment for ecosystem services schemes, the piloting of biodiversity offsetting, the delivery of 'Local Nature Partnerships' and large scale nature restoration projects, such as the 'Nature Improvement Areas'.
* Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG): Better understanding and engagement with science may lead to more efficient approaches to environmental management through improved understandings of the opportunity spaces within the National Planning Policy framework including the recognition of value of ecosystem services and through the delivery of the localism agenda within neighbourhood plans and wider championing of community ownership of assets and services. The 'golden thread' of sustainable development will also have a stronger more robust policy framework which will increasingly be used in planning decisions and consultations in the absence of any statutory plan.
* Department of Business Innovation and Skills: Better understanding and engagement with the Local Enterprise Partnerships who are now assuming strategic planning roles. The linkages with local planning authorities are being developed set within novel ideas of a single funding pot for delivery. At the heart of these should be the recognition of the environment as a key asset in delivery of economic growth.
* Department of Energy and Climate Change: One of the policy contexts in which the UK NEA science sits is to link issues of ecosystems change to wider debates of energy security and responses to climate change.
In addition the dialogue work will build on and complement the public dialogue work that Sciencewise has already supported through the LWEC Citizen's Advisory Forum and the Natural England Nature Improvement Areas public dialogues. The LWEC Advisory Forum (July 2010 to March 2011) focused on climate change and flooding but one of its recommendations was that public engagement should be supported at an 'up-stream' level, where research strategies are still emergent, and where the maturity of an agenda allows the public to consider a broader range of possible solutions and approaches with greater rationality (as in the NEAFO). The Natural England Nature Improvement Areas public dialogues have just begun (April 2013 to March 2015) and present a more devolved model of public dialogue with engagement being co-ordinated by local partnerships and focusing specifically on biodiversity and local management strategies. The NEAFO dialogue work will take a more structured methodology and look at a wider range set of issues, and it will be interesting to compare findings as the projects progress along a similar timeline.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Robert David Fish (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
| Description | Using dialogue based research the project interrogated how members of the public value the natural environment and solicited their views on emerging concepts for natural resource management in environmental policy, specifically ecosystem services and the ecosystems approach. The research found: 1. A fundamental and unambiguous connection was drawn between the natural environment and the well-being of people. The natural environment was valued by participants for a range of cultural and health benefits and considered central to human livelihoods and prosperity. Yet participants were generally pessimistic about the future of their local natural environments at the outset of the dialogue and ambivalent about whether progress was being made on current and emerging environmental risks and challenges. 2. The concept and framework of ecosystem services was viewed in a cautiously positive, or constructively critical, way by participants in this research. They were particularly supportive of its holistic ambitions and its interconnected perspective and felt that it would challenge preconceived wisdoms about the remit of the environmental agenda. However, a significant minority were sceptical about advancing use of the term 'services' to describe and manage human uses and understandings of nature. They felt it was consumerist in outlook and expressed concern that people would end up paying for things they currently have the right to access and use freely. 3. In general, participants tended to be more positive about the concept and framework of ecosystem services the more they considered it in the context of decision making and real world applications of the Ecosystem Approach. Many of the characteristics that participants associated with good decision making about the natural environment are consistent with the principles of the Ecosystem Approach. The positive and inclusive outlook of the Approach appealed to people, and they saw procedural and economic advantages in applying these principles. They felt it helpfully emphasised natural solutions to environmental challenges. However, a number of risks and challenges were identified in taking the Approach forward including how to: foster awareness and engagement of relevant stakeholders; create a credible evidence base; implement goals and; ensure that objectives are met over the long term. 4. State and third sector actors were considered to play a central role in governing and delivering ecosystem services. Participants were generally suspicious about the interests and involvement of business in dictating and delivering priorities for the natural environment. Participants viewed national government as playing a strong enabling and leadership role, and valued highly the role of publicly funded institutions and programmes of research to deliver long term public benefit from the environment, and to protect against risks. They viewed third sector actors, particularly those with localised and specialised environmental remits, as playing an important role in managing and informing new arrangements for ecosystem services delivery, such as 'payments for ecosystem service' schemes. 5. Valuation techniques were considered helpful within policy and decision making processes, although participants queried how valuation evidence is created, what it signifies and what it can be expected to do. Participant views on the use of valuation methods had political, ethical and tactical dimensions and were often sensitive to the scale and object of decision making. Monetary valuation techniques were considered important tools for helping to communicate and influence the general case for natural environment and were often associated with the virtues of transparency, objectivity and clarity in decision making. They were interpreted as a necessary, but insufficient, basis for decision making. In general, the rationale and need for different types of valuation was sensitive to the perceived uncertainty and complexity of a decision issue and whether the issue was of national and local concern. Overall, there was a very strong message about the need for pluralistic approaches to valuation, especially for issues of high complexity at all levels of decision making |
| Exploitation Route | Representatives from Government Departments and delivery bodies for the environment in UK have indicated in the formal evaluation of the project that the results of the project would feed directly into different policy initiatives. The is detailed evaluation of this research and its impact published by Sciencewise: the government co-funder. |
| Sectors | Environment |
| URL | http://valuing-nature.net/naturally-speaking |
| Description | As a result of the research: Birmingham City Council involved a cohort of participants from the Birmingham dialogue to act as a sounding board for the development of the community level Natural Capital Planning tool (which gained an Award of Excellence in 2015 by the UK UNESCO Man and Biosphere (MAB) Urban Forum). This tool aims to embed an ecosystems approach to future planning and development not only in the city but also potentially as a future national standard. It is currently being tested on live planning sites across the midlands with a wide range of partners. • Natural Resources Wales reported that the dialogue had informed practical work they are undertaking in three trial areas eliciting stakeholder views for informing area statements. They described how the method (including asking an uninformed public about their perceptions) and the findings (to help with communication to a broad public) had been useful. They also said the report was informing their knowledge gap about socio-economic evidence in relation to Natural Resource Management and strategic monitoring, within the context of the new Environment Bill in Wales. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2015 |
| Sector | Environment |
| Impact Types | Policy & public services |
| Description | Using ecosystem services in public engagement and dialogue on the natural environment |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Implementation circular/rapid advice/letter to e.g. Ministry of Health |
| URL | http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/partnerships/ride/lwec/ppn/ppn23/ |