This paper reviews the key aspects of the Ecosystem Approach, and in particular, it explores how the approach can be used to identify and assess the goods and services associated with England’s major terrestrial ecosystems. It also looks at the rationale for using an ecosystem approach in decision making.
It is argued that England’s major terrestrial ecosystems could adopt either a habitats approach, in which the focus of effort is very much on the BAP Broad and Priority Habitats, or a services approach, in which the focus is more on the identification of the ecological structures and processes. This position paper argues that these different ways of proceeding are not mutually exclusive and that we need to explore both in order to make recommendations about how an overall assessment for England might be made.
Key implications and next steps highlighted include:
- development of a cross tabulation of ecological functions, services and benefits against the BAP Broad and Priority Habitats at different spatial scales is seen as the next major step in the current work programme;
- understanding the ways in which ecosystems, and the goods and services that are associated with them, contribute to the economy can also be used to identify new opportunities for economic and social development;
- if the value of ecosystem goods and services can be assessed and expressed in robust ways, then the ecosystem approach may enable more integrated economic and environmental accounting systems to be constructed and used as the basis for future decision making. The approach could therefore be an essential element of sustainability appraisal.
