Ecosystem Services Workshop, South Africa November 2015

The Ecosystem Services Partnership (ESP) is a worldwide network, founded in 2008, to enhance the science and practical application of ecosystem services. To facilitate the needed dialogue between scientists, policy makers and practitioners ESP organises an annual international conference. This year the 8th World ESP conference will be held in South Africa from 9-13 November 2015. The central theme is ‘Ecosystem Services for Nature, People and Prosperity’.

With colleagues from, VITO, Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), North Carolina State University, CzechGlobe, Chinese Academy of Sciences and VU University Amsterdam we have prepared a Thematic Working Group Workshop to explore the Use of Ecosystem Services in trade-off assessment tools and other DSS. The aim of this session is to present novel approaches to asess ecosystem service trade-offs, especially by coupling ecosystem services with land use change models, to introduce newly developed tools and to address user needs and requests regarding the further course of trade-off assessment tools development.More information about the session here.

As an outcome of the session we are preparing an Special Issue (SI) in the Ecosystem Services Journal (ELSEVIER). The SI's title is: Putting Ecosystem Services (ES) into practice. Assessment tools and indicators for land management. Paper submission will start on 01 of October 2015.

I warmly invite all of you to submit a contribution!