The UN General Assembly has agreed to the formation of the Intergovernmental Science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) - announced by UNEP. It is said that this will be similar to IPCC, but for biodversity rather than climate. Lot of rather interesting questions to be answered as to remit, approach and governance, but UNEP now moving to organise a first plenary.
Very interesting site from Sciencewise ERC on public engagement and citizen science relating to environment and landscapes - Public engagement on landscape & ecosystem futures in England, Scotland and Wales /...
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This is from the ScienceWise Expert Resource Centre (a UK government initiative for dialogue on science in society). Of particular interest is that this focuses on citizen science in the sense of a direct engagement of the public in decisions and interpretation of science in a policy framework - in contrast to the use of citizen science to mean public participation in field monitoring and so forth. This particular initiative also connects to the UK National Ecosystem Assessment which will be released in the early part of 2011.
The proposed Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has received initial approval from the UN General Assembly, according to the UK government in a announcement. No details and no obvious response elsewhere yet, but there appears to be discussion on reporting and governance arrangements.
Just published, the 2010 integrated assessment report of the UK Countryside Survey 2007, with a huge amount of information on trends in indicators linked explicitly to ecosystem services. /....
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In summary:
Stable or improving: Indicators linked to freshwaters and soils were stable or improving. As they underpin many regulating and supporting services these service categories were also generally stable or improving.
Declining: Plant diversity indicators were declining (an 8% reduction in number of species in 200m2 vegetation plots between 1978 and 2007) as was nectar plant diversity, used here as an indicator of one aspect of the regulating service of pollination. Cultural indicators linked to plant species diversity and landscape had also declined.
Plus a lot of detailed analysis of trends observed for specific services linked to freshwaters, soils, plant diversity, pollinator food plants and an exploration of the use of CS data to assess cultural services and interactions between services.
