Ecosystem services in SEA: are we missing the point of a simple concept?

Abstract

Abstract: In spite of a wealth of scientific literature, the concept of ecosystem services (ES) has little uptake in the worlds of planning and related environmental assessment. This paper is a personal search for the reasons of this lack of uptake, based on 20 years of consultancy experience in natural resources management, combined with a (non-exhaustive) survey of recent literature and an IAIA 2015 conference workshop. The paper takes stock of available lessons and ends with a simple and straightforward stepwise approach to use ES as an integrative concept in SEA. The paper also is a plea to stop complicating life and maybe for a while forget about computational models and monetary valuation, and first start asking stakeholders and decision-makers, listen to their language and find out what kind of information is relevant to them.