The importance of biodiversity and healthy, functioning ecosystems and the services they deliver has increasingly been acknowledged during the last decades. Respective policy initiatives, such as the EU Biodiversity Strategies 2020 and 2030, the EU Green Deal or the global IPBES, IPCC and CBD were launched in order to appropriately address biodiversity and natural capital and the various social and economic values they provide to humankind. Related research has created a knowledge and database to better understand and analyse the complex nature-human interactions that are at the base of ecosystem services delivery. The key aim of related actions is to provide sufficiently robust information that can be harnessed to support protection, restoration and sustainable as well as climate-neutral use of ecosystems in the EU by 2030.  

In the EU, the MAES (Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services) action has provided the conceptual, methodological and data base for comprehensive ecosystem assessments on different spatial scales, including the EU-wide assessment launched in 2020 as well as finished or ongoing assessments in individual EU member states and regions. Thus, knowledge and monitoring data of MAES in the different ecosystem types (including protected and marine areas) are becoming increasingly available. Different platforms dedicated to MAES have been established to share methods, data, case studies and knowledge across the EU. The next logical step is now to a) integrate the different MAES components of ecosystem mapping, condition and services assessments and natural capital accounting and to b) enable the uptake of ecosystem services (ES) in practical decision making at different spatial and temporal scales and in various public and business decision making levels. Key challenges include the proof of evidence of biodiversity-ecosystem condition-ES relationships (as identified e.g. by the EU-wide assessment), and how to link them to human benefits, macro-economic policies and to EU policies for instance on agriculture, fishery, forestry, nature conservation, climate or water. 

The project consortium will bring together a broad range of highly qualified experts from all EU member states, associated countries, EU outermost regions as well as overseas countries and territories with relevant stakeholders and citizens from various public and business sectors. The excellent transdisciplinary expertise in the consortium brings together leading experts on ecosystem services science, including ecologists over all ecosystem types, economists and social scientists and ecosystem accounting and also specialists on the science-policy and science-business interfaces. The project builds on and unifies a major share of experts involved in prior as well as ongoing related actions, such as OpenNESS, ESMERALDA, MAIA, MAES, IPBES and the Biodiversity Partnership. Therefore, the comprehensive project will be able to successfully address the challenges of integrating the various components mentioned above and provide applicable indicators, tools and models together with the guidance on how to use them. The project will deliver real cases for an evidence-, ES-based and harmonised decision making across Europe, enabling transformative change to halt biodiversity decline and to secure essential ecosystem services’ sustainable supply and use.

Contacts
Adriana Bruggeman     |     This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.     |     +357 22 208 620

Elias Giannakis     |     This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.     |     +357 22 208 683

Christos Zoumides     This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.     |     +357 22 208 607