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UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 1686-ii House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE ENVIRONMENTAL AUDIT COMMITTEE (TRADE, DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENT SUB-COMMITTEE)
TRADE, DEVELOPMENT AND ENVIRONMENT: THE UN MILLENNIUM ECOSYSTEM ASSESSMENT
Wednesday 1 November 2006 DR DANIEL OSBORN, DR STEVEN WILSON and MR NEVILLE ASH Evidence heard in Public Questions 65 - 87
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT
Oral Evidence Taken before the Environmental Audit Committee (Trade, Development and Environment Sub-Committee) on Wednesday 1 November 2006 Members present Colin Challen, in the Chair Mr Martin Caton David Howarth Mr Edward Vaizey ________________ Memoranda submitted by the UN Environment Programme (World Conservation Monitoring Centre) and Natural Environment Research Council
Examination of Witnesses
Witnesses: Mr Neville Ash, Head of Ecosystem Assessment, UN Environment Programme (World Conservation Monitoring Centre); and Dr Steven Wilson, Director, Science and Innovation, and Dr Daniel Osborn, Strategic Partnerships Broker, Natural Environment Research Council, gave evidence. Q65 Chairman: Good afternoon. Thank you very much for coming in to give us evidence this afternoon. I am wondering if we could start perhaps by you introducing your relevant organisations and just telling us very briefly what their function is. Dr Wilson: I am Steven Wilson and I am Director of Science and Innovation at the Natural Environment Research Council, NERC. NERC is one of the (currently) eight research councils. We fund and carry out independent environmental research. We of course also train the next generation of environmental scientists. Dr Osborn: I am Daniel Osborn. I work for NERC centrally and I have a special role in looking at stakeholder partnerships within the NERC remit. Mr Ash: I am Neville Ash from the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge. The UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre is the biodiversity assessment and policy implementation arm of UNEP. It has a staff of about 50 based here in the UK. The Centre played a key role in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment itself during the four years 2001-2005 and we are playing a key role in the follow-up to the Millennium Assessment, mainly at the international level. Q66 Chairman: Thank you very much. If I could kick off with the questions. Some witnesses to the Sub-Committee have said that they see a lack of progress in addressing the issues raised by the MA. How much impact do you think it has had so far and do you think that on internalising its results there is a lot of progress to be made on that front? Dr Osborn: Neville will perhaps want to say something from the WCMC perspective, but I think with a document of this size and an enterprise of the kind it has been - and it has really gathered opinions from all around the world and looked at the best available evidence, et cetera, and come to some reasonably radical conclusions - it is going to take some time for bodies to respond. I can understand people so far saying that perhaps there has not been a great deal of response to date that people have seen in the public domain but certainly, for example, in academic circles there is quite a lot of activity now, designed to follow up the MA. There is something within the remit of the International Council of Scientific Union, for example. There is an initiative on biodiversity by IMOSEB, which although its recommendations from its latest meeting in Leipzig do not make specific reference to the MA, if we read the words, the philosophy and the concepts that were in the MA have definitely seeped into a number of international initiatives like that, so I think there is progress. At the moment it is perhaps a little bit under the surface and it will start emerging I would say in 2007, so there is quite a lot that is going on. Neville, you might want to add some specifics. Mr Ash: Impact to date has been mixed in different parts of the world and different sectors and different disciplines. One must recognise that it is early days. The findings only came out themselves officially in March 2005. Many of the translations of the findings are only just becoming available on-line now and being distributed. Many parts of the world have not even received the findings yet. In terms of those parts of the world which have had access to the findings, and may even have heard of them, again the impact has been mixed. At the international level within the conventions, which were a key audience for the global process, certainly in CBD, the Biodiversity Convention and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, there has been some very significant uptake of the concepts of the MA. I think that is about as far as it goes on the impact it has had to date, in terms of the adoption of the concepts, in particular the notion of ecosystem services, and that has been true of the international community through the convention process. It has certainly been true at the national level where the notion of ecosystem services is allowing a dialogue to take place between development and environment ministries in many countries around the world. Europe is certainly taking a lead in that, particularly within Europe in Western Europe and Northern Europe, the Scandinavian countries. There was a conference recently in Paris on biodiversity and European development co-operation, which was not exactly off the back of the MA but the entire agenda and dialogue there was based on an understanding of ecosystem services, and the MA really informed that conference taking place. That was well represented from European and developing nation governments. At the regional level, the European Environment Agency, for example, is adopting the MA conceptual framework and is thinking about producing a European-wide assessment report in relation to the 2010 biodiversity targets. At the national level there has been a mixed response in terms of impacts of the MA. Typically what we are finding is that the national response around the world is strongest in areas where there has been a sub-global assessment of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. The MA itself was both a global process and a global assessment but also there were 34 sub-global initiatives under the auspices of the MA. Many of those are on-going, in fact some have been completed, and we are finding in some parts of the world where there have been completed sub-global assessments there has been a particularly strong follow-up. In China, for example, there is a Western China Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the Chinese Government is now taking those concepts on board nationally and thinking about natural resources and assessment at the national level. It is not just governments around the world where there have been some impacts; in the private sector there have been impacts too. For example, Goldman Sachs, the financial establishment has taken on board the notion of ecosystem services as they think about their environmental policies. The World Business Council on Sustainable Development is taking on board the notion of ecosystem services and aims to communicate environmental issues within the private sector. Within the non-governmental/non-private sector, the NGO community, the Millennium Assessment has been certainly been taken up, largely by environmental NGOs, as a useful tool for communicating the value of the environment in the development process, and to a much less extent by development orientated NGOs. There has been a very significant gap there in its uptake. There have been regional gaps. In North America there has been relatively little uptake by government and in Latin America there has been relatively little uptake by government outside of the key areas where there have been sub-global assessments in Argentina, San Paulo and in Chile. So the uptake and the impact of the MA has been very mixed and largely at this stage conceptual where the greatest impact has been the notion of ecosystem services, allowing a dialogue between the environmental and development sector. Q67 Chairman: I note that you did not use the word resistance from the development NGOs to the MA but perhaps they were not quite so enthusiastic. Could you say a bit more about that as to whether they are not really picking up the connection between the environment and poverty eradication. Is their attitude reflected at all within government circles, not just within this country but elsewhere as well? Mr Ash: I think part of the issue is that the material has not been communicated to the development NGOs in the same way as to the environmental NGOs, in part because there were more environmental NGOs involved in the production of the MA, and typically the findings of the MA are being taken up more by the institutions which were involved in the process of the production of the Assessment itself and stakeholders involved during that timeframe. There is inevitably going to be a lag between the findings coming out and becoming mainstream in the environmental sector and then being transferred into the development sector, but there are promising signs of that happening, particularly in governments, and I think particularly in government here in the UK too, for example where the Department for International Development is taking up on some of the MA findings. They commissioned a study which we provided for them from the WCMC last year on the role of biodiversity and the supply of ecosystem services. They were interested in more specifics about the details of the ecosystem function and how that related to the ecosystem services. They are interested at the moment in the UK impact on international biodiversity as related to ecosystem services as well. Certainly there has been a much lesser response in the development community across NGO and governmental departments, but I see part of that as a lag in the findings getting into that community and part of it is just this is a new area for many of these individuals to work in and the environment has historically not been centrefold in development. I think the MA puts it on the map as an important component in the development agenda. Dr Wilson: May I follow on that point specifically on the development side but first just briefly a more general point about the impact of the Millennium Assessment on the research communities and research administration, where I work. In NERC we cover the full range of environmental sciences, which means on a daily basis I am interacting with people who do physical science, people on the more biological side, and also with our sister research councils, for example in the Economic and Social Research Council. I am from the physical sciences myself which means that my background has not been particularly from a biodiversity or an ecosystem perspective. What the MA has provided - and this has been very clear for us over recent months - is a framework which allows all the different groups, each of whom have different research languages, to have a common framework because the Assessment deals with both provisioning services, food and so, on and also the regulation services like climate regulation, which means that it is pretty important to those different communities, both from within the NERC family that I see most often but also with our colleagues on the economic and social science side, in finding a framework that helps us to develop a common language, which is going to be very important to tackle some of these issues. If I may just briefly comment on the specific following on the development issue, and that is that NERC have recently been working quite closely with the Department for International Development (DFID) and ESRC the Economic and Social Research Council on a proposal for quite a significant project on ecosystems and poverty alleviation. This is to look at what is driving the degradation of a number of key services and using that scientific information as evidence as to how it can help with poverty alleviation. DFID are taking a strong role on this. They have already announced a major involvement with ESRC, and I think that quite a lot can be traced back to the Millennium Assessment and what it said about the degradation of services and the impact on the developing world. Q68 Chairman: That leads me on to my next question really which is about how the MA can be followed up formally too. Some people have suggested that there should be some kind of rolling programme modelled on the IPPC to do that. Would you welcome the establishment of such a body and what do you think its key role should be, if you do? Dr Osborn: I think the best way to approach that is following on from what Steven Wilson has already said about the framework the MA supplies for conversation between different research communities and different groups. When you are looking at a range of environmental problems, it is becoming clear that the points raised in the MA about the relationships between ecosystem services, their delivery and economic evaluation, et cetera, need to be added to in a sense because there are the environmental processes that support the delivery of those services. If we were exceeding the rate of use of natural resources such that we were approaching the limits of replenishment, so we were using them faster than they are being replenished, then that is something we need to know about, but we will only know about that if we understand the environmental processes properly. To some extent that is a gap in the MA's overall concept. It does not say a great deal about the link between the environmental processes themselves and the delivery of ecosystem services. That is something the research community needs to focus on. We will only get the necessary drives to be able to use the MA properly if we do follow it up at a range of different levels. Several people have drawn to my attention the importance of the regional analysis that was done for sub-Saharan Africa where various multi-scale studies were undertaken. I think therefore following up on some of these regional and sub-regional assessments is very important and, as far as the research community in UK is concerned, there seems to be a general consensus that the way to make quickest progress is not necessarily to repeat an MA for the UK, for example, but to have a look at some specific ecosystems and specific services and see what the links are between environmental and ecological processes, the delivery of services, and the way we might then develop various management and policy options as a result of that kind of study. That is perhaps the most productive way in which the MA could be followed up at a national level. Neville, you perhaps have a view on how it might be taken forward internationally and some of the data gaps, et cetera, there are at that sort of scale. Mr Ash: I think there is again a range of ways in which the MA could and should be followed up nationally and internationally. If I focus on the international set, clearly there is a need for on-going and increased communication of the findings of the MA as they stand at the moment. There are a number of reports, and I guess you have access to those, the thick volumes of 2,000 pages of technical findings. They have been summarised in a range of shorter documents, some of which are very short indeed. Tim Hersh from the BBC has been putting together some very thin documents in plain English. Some of those have been simplified and summarised again in much shorter pamphlets to hand out. There is a really wide range of materials now that can be used for effective communication of the findings. The findings to date have been communicated in a way which focuses on the big, key findings on the degradation of ecosystem services, but what has not been communicated so well so far internationally, and nationally too, are some of the promising response options and what can be done about this problem of the degradation of ecosystem services into the future. That takes us to the two parts of the MA, the scenarios that were developed at a global level and also in some sub-global assessments, and the response options which analyse their effectiveness. So a key follow-up strategy is increasing communication of the existing findings. I have mentioned a number of these sub-global assessments which started off under the auspices of the MA, 34 originally, and at least half of those are on-going. There is an enormous need now for on-going co-ordination of those sub-global activities to share lessons learnt between them and experiences gained so the methodology coming out from the MA can be shared more widely. There is a process underway to document the best practice ecosystem assessment methodology at the moment and that has been underway within UNEP to get those findings out more widely so we can facilitate and build capacity for conducting ecosystem assessments at national and sub-national scale. That will be the focus of that document and the on-going co-ordination between the various sub-global activities and those new ones which are starting up in many parts of the world - I will come back to argue why I think the UK already has a sub-global Millennium Assessment underway at the moment. It is not just here in the UK, in Europe in France it has started and in Germany there are ideas for one. We have already had within Europe assessments in Portugal and Norway and a preliminary in Sweden. I have mentioned the European-wide assessment in 2010. There is a new assessment starting up in Japan and elsewhere. There is a large number of new assessment processes starting up and there is a need for co-ordination and the sharing of lessons learnt between those processes. In terms of the global follow-up there is certainly a critical need for more research. The MA identified a wide range of research gaps, some of which were extremely fundamental - the distribution of the world's wetlands, a time series for global forest cover changes - really basic things which the world should know about by now. I think the UK could play a key role in encouraging strongly international and UN institutions to do a better job of tracking global change in many aspects of ecosystems, including biodiversity and ecosystem services. There are some projects underway at the moment relating to the 2010 targets to develop global indicators which could be built on. Thus some very fundamental science needs to be done to better understand the dynamics of the world ecosystem distribution and the relationship, as Daniel mentioned, between ecosystems and ecosystem services and between ecosystem services and people, there needs to be a lot more fundamental research done there. A key area where there were some interesting findings in the MA, where particular research can be done, is the notion of thresholds and non-linear changes, which are of particular interest to many user communities. The MA identified that in fact we know very little about how to predict the non-linear, dramatic, sudden changes. The collapse in fishing stocks would be the classic example there. There is certainly a lot more follow-up to be done in terms of research. As to an on-going mechanism such as the MA, the MA was already designed to be, in theory, repeatable in periods into the future. There has been talk about repeating some kind of MA process in five to ten year periods. The MA itself is modelled on the IPPC and took many of the lessons learned from the IPPC processes (now coming up to a fourth release of the report) into the MA. There are still more lessons that I think can be learned now from the MA in a similar kind of follow-up process. These are being taken on, I believe, in the on-going consultation process for the International Mechanism for Scientific Expertise on Biodiversity (IMOSEB). Despite my personal concerns about that being very much a science-led process at the moment where I think there could be more policy consultation going on too, I believe the MA has a lot of valuable lessons that can be passed on to those consultations under the auspices of IMOSEB. That said, I believe whatever the outcome of the IMOSEB process, if it turns into an ecosystem assessment in the same state of play as the MA, that would be very useful. If not, I think there would still be a gap in the science policy interface for a scientific assessment based around a similar kind of governance, stakeholder involvement and content of the MA. Dr Osborn: Can I just follow that through at the UK level. There are a number of research initiatives that are going on at the UK level many of which are linked into European initiatives as well. For example, just within the NERC area we should be running the next Countryside Survey in 2007. That has been developed over the last two years with a very close link to policy and many of the lead scientists in that area, both in Defra and its agencies and in NERC research centres such as the Centre For Ecology and Hydrology, have very much got in mind that the results of the Countryside Survey will come in in a format that can be used to have a look at some of the issues raised by the MA. That is a way which for the rural environment in the UK we can have a look at change in various aspects of natural resources over a period of about 40 years. It is by far and away the most comprehensive way of looking at the rural environment there is in the world and that will be a very useful initiative. It is an example of the way in which we can monitor the environment over a period of time and analyse the data to find out what the causes of the changes we observe in biodiversity actually are. We can look at the relative strengths of the drivers like climate change effects and pollution like nitrogen deposition and things of that kind, so the UK itself is really very well placed. There is research in Defra at the moment which is looking very much at this issue of ecosystem services and how we can use the data and information that we already collect in terrestrial and marine environments and in the atmospheric area as well, and look at how we can build that into this concept of ecosystem services so that we end up overall managing the environment in a more sustainable fashion. A very recent example of how important these things are is the Stern Report which came out yesterday and one of the gaps I notice that is identified there is this very area of where biodiversity and ecosystem services that do not have a market value very readily at the moment need to be incorporated into the analysis to refine it somewhat further. So there is an immediate opportunity there for the MA findings to be taken into the mainstream of economic thinking. I have no doubt the Stern Report will have a big impact on economic thinking. Q69 Chairman: It seems to me that one of the great strengths of the MA was its holistic approach, if you like, and I can see that the different scientific disciplines and professions will clearly dig into their piece of territory and follow it up in their own way. In doing so without a holistic follow-up, is there a danger that some disciplines and particular areas, which are perhaps not quite so sexy politically or indeed scientifically may just fall away again and be neglected? Dr Wilson: Let me just give an initial answer to that. Whilst I may not be able to give a full answer as to whether some bits might drop away if there is no oversight body, what I can say is that there is clear work between the different research councils which have an interest here and the associated government departments. NERC and ESRC are forming a strong partnership, BBSRC is also getting involved, and we are being approached strongly by the relevant government departments, Defra and DFID. Whereas previously I am sure there have been a lot of cultural and language-type barriers between the different scientific communities involved on the physical side and the biological side and on the economic and social side, there is a strong willingness from the top of these at least, the funding organisations, to try to help them move forward, and the MA is there to give us a unifying framework just as you have said. Chairman: Perhaps we will move on. Mr Vaizey? Q70 Mr Vaizey: I was going to talk to you about communication but you have mainly covered that in your earlier answers where you said that you felt that there was a wide range of material already available. I have to say that your assessment of how the MA is being communicated is much more upbeat than the previous witnesses we have had. You have given the impression, and this is not a criticism, that the information is being disseminated quite widely. Is that a fair summary of your view? Mr Ash: I think I said it varied enormously so there are patches of the world and sectors where the information is getting out very widely. That is certainly so in the environmental sector in Europe and North America and the non-governmental sector in North America. There are patches of the world where there has also been particular sub-global assessment. We mentioned Southern African and there is the Caribbean Sea in Trinidad and Western China, so there are lots of examples where the findings have been disseminated reasonably well. Q71 Mr Vaizey: Just in terms of practicalities what do you mean by that? How does it happen that in Western China the findings get through, as it were, and acted upon? Mr Ash: I think it is partly because things like brochures and pamphlets are making their way into schools in the local languages, that kind of activity. Q72 Mr Vaizey: It is literally that kind of micro level? Mr Ash: Very grass roots level communication going on locally in some parts of the world. That is not happening globally by any means. There is still a very significant language barrier in communicating the main findings in many parts of the non-English speaking world. That is slowly being dealt with as new translations are coming out and becoming available but, do not get me wrong, there is an enormous need still for much greater communication of the existing findings and by no means has that been a job done well. Q73 Mr Vaizey: How can it be done well or done better? Mr Ash: One of the challenges was that the funding for the MA ran out by the end of 2005. There has been one secretariat staff member working through until about a month or so ago on communication of the findings, but they have been largely involved in arranging translations. I think two things need to happen. One is that the institutions and governments who are aware and taking up the MA need to do a better job themselves of disseminating the findings through their networks and processes. The other is that there needs to be a process by which funds are directly dedicated to the dissemination of findings, whether it be through television, radio, documentary literature or internet-based dissemination, so the full range of mechanisms by which the findings could be further disseminated. Q74 Mr Vaizey: Is that similar to Sachs' idea about the Ecosystem Fund where he talks about a fund of $200 million to help developing countries adopt the Millennium Assessment and integrate it with policy? Mr Ash: It would help, certainly. The findings of the MA need to be communicated as well to non-environment departments in governments. They have done a reasonable job through the convention processes at targeting the environment departments of government but I think what has not happened in many cases is the development, the planning, the finance, the agriculture and fisheries and forestry departments have not been well-targeted by the findings of the MA. Funding constraints were a large problem there. Q75 Mr Vaizey: I think that covers it for me. Dr Osborn: Could I just emphasise one of the activities that seems to be happening in the scientific community. I have had some requests from colleagues to do a bit more communication within the scientific community to perhaps draw together some of the common points across disciplines, for example, and I think the research councils would pursue that type of activity or encourage it as a matter of normal business in many ways. However, at the international level, for example within Europe, there is an initiative to provide some policy focus briefing on, for example, which bits of European biodiversity are playing the greatest role in delivering ecosystem services. That is something that will hopefully report around Easter time. That is being done by a pan-European group of the European science academies. Mr Vaizey: So there is a lot much communication of that kind? Q76 Chairman: Is the British Government doing much to communicate any of this? We have heard about China but we are leaders in climate change, et cetera, so presumably every primary school in this country is receiving a pack or something of the sort. Are you aware of anything happening? Mr Ash: Sadly, that is not the case yet. Primary schools in the UK are yet to become aware of the findings of the MA. Mr Vaizey: Do you think they should do it at DFID? Chairman: Okay, can we minute a moment's silence! Mr Howarth? Q77 David Howarth: Can I just ask you a few more questions about research funding. As the MP for Cambridge it would not be very surprising that I ask you those questions. You have already mentioned the gaps in the research arising out of the MA and obviously there are calls for an international interdisciplinary research agenda for sustainable development because it has to bring economics and not just the sciences, and presumably you all agree that needs to be done. Can I just ask you about how that might be done. What one person giving evidence to us has said is that it could be hosted by the International Council for Science, for example. We would like to have some feel for what options there might be for achieving that end and for getting the international inter-disciplinary research agenda going and what the advantages and disadvantages might be of different structures. Dr Osborn: Certainly the ICSU mechanism is one way in which an international research agenda could be organised and I am sure a group doing that led by Al Moonie (?) will have a very significant influence on international thinking in that area. There is an enormous amount of interest at various levels in the scientific community and considerable feeling amongst some of our most distinguished scientists that this is an issue that cannot be dropped and that the research community should take forward. I think through the natural process and mechanism by which that community works and by the way in which the forthcoming NERC strategy is looking like it is beginning to develop, it looks as if there will be opportunities for people to pursue MA-type research, but Steven might want to say a little bit more about that. Dr Wilson: Perhaps just to follow up on that, as well as research relevant to the MA, which I think is going to appear quite high up on the agenda in the next NERC strategy, it is also pretty much at the top of the pile of the cross-disciplinary programmes that the research councils are putting forward as part of the coming spending review, so it has been identified by the councils themselves as a serious priority. Dr Osborn: And it is certainly something that we could do within the UK because of the amount of basic information we have about the environment and because of the standing that UK researchers have in this type of research internationally, so the UK can give quite a lead in this area if the funding opportunities are there. Of course, it all depends on the availability of those funds. Q78 David Howarth: That was going to be my next question: what is the funding situation? We have heard concern that funding for research, indeed funding for ecosystem management itself, is inadequate and that the Government might actually reduce funds available for that sort of work. Is that what you are hearing and how would that affect your ability to meet these challenges you have identified arising out of the MA? Dr Wilson: I guess I can probably only answer that, at least initially, from a NERC perspective. That is to say, as I have just said, both on our new strategy development and the cross-disciplinary activities across councils, this area and associated research and biodiversity and so on is coming out as a high priority, which to me means if that is what happens in our final strategy document that NERC and other councils will try to channel priority funding in that direction, so from a NERC perspective, biodiversity and issues associated with natural resources, all linked to the Millennium Assessment, are right up there at the top of the pile in our strategy development. For government departments I clearly cannot answer and you would not expect me to answer for ministers, but what I can say is that DFID have been more than upbeat with us. They have announced elsewhere in this building a financial commitment to a major programme with us, and Defra also appear to be very interested in the issue of ecosystem services. That is a little way further behind in terms of specific financial commitments but the ministers are talking about it and they are talking to us about it. Q79 David Howarth: What is the funding situation internationally? How does what is going on here compare with what is going on elsewhere? Bear in mind that the RSPB told us there seemed to be no funding at all for British overseas territories where there was some interest. There does not seem to be any funding for work there so could you just comment in the general context of the international situation. Dr Osborn: As far as the overseas territories are concerned, there is a general appreciation in the UK ecological community that those territories are quite important in biodiversity terms. They have got some very unique resources. I see a slight trend in government that that is perhaps an area of biodiversity resource that has not quite received the attention it has deserved. Whether that translates into increased funding for that area is another issue, and I cannot comment on that, but I do detect an increasing recognition that there are important biodiversity resources that fall under the UK's general responsibilities towards those overseas territories. Q80 David Howarth: And the international funding situation? Mr Ash: I have a small thing to add. I think there is some concern that the funding for international monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystem services is in fact in decline. For example, we now have less hydrographic monitoring going on around the world than we did 30 years ago. The data now is poorer than it was 30 years ago in temporal terms. There are a wide range of mechanisms going on internationally for monitoring both biodiversity and ecosystem services, for example some forestry resources assessments coming out from the UN FAO and others, some of the work going on to monitor global biodiversity in support of the 2010 biodiversity targets, and even within the Millennium Development Goals, where there are targets on forest cover and protected areas. Whilst the information is slowly improving, these processes are vastly under-resourced. In some cases - I mentioned the water monitoring programmes - the funding availability is in fact in decline. Dr Osborn: We are trying to get a bit smarter in monitoring some of these things in the research communities and Steve might be able to say something about earth observation. Dr Wilson: I will say something about earth observation. I also agree with Neville's point that at an international level across the environmental domain observations and monitoring and doing that on an organised basis is still proving to be a real challenge. There are some sectors which are extremely successful internationally and very well co-ordinated. They tend to be, for example, those areas that have grown from meteorology, which has always had a very natural international outlook. On the remote sensing side observations from satellites, which provide quite a lot of information relevant to this area, there is growing co-ordination of observations at an international level through the Group on Earth Observation (GEO) and at a European level something called GMES, Global Monitoring for Environment and Security, but I would say for other sorts of observations and monitoring and in general that the situation is probably far more patchy. I also suspect that there are issues here for us in the UK as to how we play into those international discussions and, without wishing to be too negative, we are not always necessarily as joined-up nationally as we could be in those international fora. Dr Osborn: There probably will be some opportunities in the European Framework Programme as well for research of an appropriate kind. You might not find the words "MA" very much in some of the programme documents but in the thematic document of the European Union the MA is right up there, and so clearly that is influencing thinking at that level and that should make sure that some of the international issues at least are dealt with. Q81 Mr Caton: Can we go back to something that you have already touched on very briefly and that is basically the application of the MA approach within the UK. We have had a fair bit of evidence to this inquiry calling for a UK level assessment based on the MA methodology. From what you said in a previous answer, Dr Osborn, it sounded like you did not think that was very valuable and then, on the other hand Mr Ash, I think you are saying that Defra research is already following the MA approach, although perhaps it has some characteristics missing. Can you both expand first on the positions you are taking and then say whether you think there would be any value in actually upgrading that Defra research so it took on all the characteristics of the MA. Dr Osborn: I suspect there is not as much between us as perhaps we have given the impression. What we have got at the minute within the research community is the fact that researchers are always looking to what is tractable and where they can have a good-quality research project that will test a hypothesis, for example, or develop a predictive model. For the research community, that is most easily done if the focus of the work is narrowed so you can address the issue and get a firm answer. That is where I said earlier people see opportunities for most progress perhaps by studying specific ecosystems. I did not mean to give the impression that we should not do the type of work that would lead us to have the knowledge necessary to follow through on the MA. In actual fact, you could envisage by putting together various pieces of research being done by the research councils and government departments, you would get quite close to a UK MA on the basis of what we already have to hand, let alone what we will have to hand in a year or two after, for example, we have done the Countryside Survey. So there are some very promising ways in which we could do an MA but it is probably more for departments to decide whether they want to have that type of information available in the round or whether they want to make progress on specific ecosystems and make more rapid progress across a narrower front. Q82 Mr Caton: Before Mr Ash comes in because this will save me asking you another question in a minute, that approach you have said of tying the research together so you have got a MA; do you see value in that? Dr Osborn: Yes, I do see there is value in that. Mr Ash: The reason why I think that England (but not the UK) is already doing ecosystem service assessment is because of the activities underway in terms of looking at data availability for ecosystem services, looking at trends of ecosystem services, looking at the evaluation of ecosystem services through time, and doing that at an England scale, and in this case four sub-England scales. There is the Thames catchment, the M6 corridor link in Lancashire, the Parrett catchment in Somerset, and the wetlands in Oxfordshire, which are entirely analogous to many of the 34 sub-global assessments in the MA. There were certainly more characteristics in some of those assessments than we are seeing here in England and certainly in most cases the stakeholder arrangements were broader than we are seeing here in England. As Dan has mentioned, this is very much a research-led initiative going on at the moment which Defra is funding. That said, the findings that come out of the process will be very analogous to those coming out of very similar processes throughout the rest of the sub-global assessment. Although the global MA has the three key components of the condition and trends assessment, the scenarios assessment and the responses assessment, in fact many of the sub-global assessments focused almost entirely on the condition and trends assessment, as we are seeing here in this England scale assessment activity. I think by not looking at scenarios in this case and not looking at the effectiveness of policy responses, it is in no way dissimilar to other sub-global assessments of the MA. The stakeholder and institutional arrangements for this are more science-led than many of the other MA sub-global assessments. In terms of the on-going follow-up and co-ordination and sharing of lessons learnt within a sub-global assessment within UNEP, we are seeing this England and sub-England assessment very much as one of the sub-global activities of the MA. Q83 Mr Caton: You make a good point that we are talking just about England. What is happening in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and is there a case for trying to create a UK MA? Mr Ash: Ecosystems do not stop at the borders so I would think the answer to the second question is yes. I do not know myself what is happening in those devolved administration countries. Dr Osborn: Certainly in terms of Scotland and Wales, for example on the question of the Countryside Survey, which is very useful in MA terms, then the Scotland and Wales departments are fully engaged in that process. As far as I know, they are contributing financially to those activities. I think that shows that they are very much engaged with the process and certainly their scientific officials are fully aware of the MA findings and are engaging in workshops, et cetera, to address some of the issues. I think what Neville has said about where there has been a focus so far in the sub-regional assessments and that similar things are going on in England, what activity there is is very much determined by the data availability and the nature of the information that can be gleaned from that data. That suggests there is a gap in linking across to other disciplines other than perhaps the natural science one, and that emphasises the point Steven Wilson made earlier about the need to link up between different groups such as economists and social scientists as well to be able to look at some of these policy responses. We need links between the medical sciences and natural sciences as well to look at some of these issues such as diseases and disease control. We need links to engineers to look at things like flood alleviation and issues of this kind. Where there are gaps there is also an awareness of that willingness to talk and take on some of these issues in a research sense. Q84 Mr Caton: Is there anybody auditing the UK's current policies and practices against the MA and, if so, is it going beyond the conservation biodiversity area to look at things like transport, taxation and other policies? Dr Osborn: There is quite a lot of talk across government about issues like transport, as I am sure you are aware. The Foresight Office had an intelligent infrastructures project recently which took on issues that you could say were related to the MA about what would the environmental interactions to a transport system be. I think there are a lot of appropriate discussions going on. I am certainly myself going to spend some time looking at the cross link at a strategic research level. Whether there is a specific person in a government department, I do not think that is something that we can necessarily answer, but I do know that Defra are taking this issue of ecosystem services extremely seriously and the work they are doing is, in fact, quite leading edge and would lead to questions being asked in the area which you have referred to. You would have to ask the departments if they have people actually doing this kind of work at the moment. Mr Ash: I was encouraged by the workshop Defra held yesterday or the day before on the question of evaluation of ecosystem services. That has come up again and may be as an indirect consequence of the MA taking place and highlighting the importance of evaluation of ecosystem services. Defra is taking a strong lead in that area. Dr Osborn: Defra is also joining with learned societies to try and get some of these issues discussed and to make sure that they get a wide spectrum of views from people on this issue of ecosystem services. Q85 Mr Caton: If we went ahead with a UK MA how would we incorporate our international objectives into that? Dr Osborn: This is the issue of the UK's extended environmental footprint. How could we measure that and get a handle on that? I think there have been some interesting things of late. For example, there has been a study published quite recently under World Wildlife Fund auspices involving the Institute of Zoology looking at the different footprints of different countries to see, for example, how much land UK citizens use fundamentally with the lifestyle and approach to life that they have got at the minute. So there are ways of thinking about some of these issues at the moment, but I do not think necessarily we are terribly clear about how we would do that in great detail in terms of assessing the proportion of the ecosystem service degradation that might be going on somewhere else that could be tied to UK activities solely. I think you need an international effort to try and work that sort of thing out. I do not think the UK could do it, for example, by itself. It would have to do it in association with the EU and the Americans and Chinese. Q86 Mr Caton: What do you feel about sustainability indicators to measure our environmental footprint, whether on an international basis or on a UK basis? Dr Osborn: I think there have been a number of efforts to try and do things of this kind. Perhaps what is happening is that natural scientists have come up with a set of indicators which they think are good measures of sustainability and then some economists have tried to work with natural science data to come up with a number of indicators, shall we say, of how far different communities around the world are vulnerable to climate or something of this nature. Work of this kind has been done within NERC, for example. What we have not had is groups of natural scientists and economists combined together to develop indicators of that kind. Again, there is a gap there and people need to talk to one another. Again in the Defra workshop yesterday I believe it talked about some approaches that might be taken to that sort of issue, but it is quite a complicated and difficult one. Mr Ash: On UK global impact, there are a couple of projects going on at the moment which are making some contribution to that, although I agree a much broader effort would be needed to get to the bottom of that issue. One is with JNCC going on at Peterborough and we are involved with that in UNEP, a global CMT, looking at the global impact of UK commodity trade, looking at a set of commodities, and looking at the ecosystems from which they are derived in different parts of the world. We are very much working with national contacts through UNEP and other organisations to get a handle on the kind of impact that UK trade (typically consumption) of these commodities is having, in terms of area of ecosystem affected by plantations, in terms of water diversions, and these kinds of things. That is a project going on at the moment under the JNCC global impact programme. I mentioned earlier that DFID are interested in commissioning a report at the moment on the UK global impact on biodiversity, although the scope of that could be vast and so needs to be prioritised in terms of the kinds of UK policies that are analysed in terms of their impact. Q87 Mr Caton: One last question from me: have you seen the EC's Biodiversity Communication and Action Plan and, if so, what are your views. Dr Osborn: Yes I think I have seen that and the things that are coming out of that, like in so many other instances, line up rather nicely with what the MA is saying. The EU are translating that into action certainly on the research front in the Framework Programme, and I think it provides an opportunity for Member States to respond appropriately and say what they are doing in those areas. I think that the plans that have emerged, if they are followed through, will do quite a lot to move the MA conclusions and findings into action on biodiversity in the Member States. Mr Ash: I have not seen that document specifically, but on a point within the EC, in 2001 there was a lot of effort to bring on board the European Community to be involved in the MA process. There was strong resistance at that time for any kind of involvement from the EC, whether financial or otherwise, despite a great deal of involvement of EC nationals in the process and here in the UK, Cambridge University and other institutes around the country. That has changed dramatically over the four or five years since then, in fact the European Communities are now taking up on the MA in ways in which it would not have been envisaged five years ago. I have not seen that document specifically, but certainly within the Community there has been a much broader buy-in to the concepts of the MA than we had five or six years ago. Dr Osborn: There seems to be a much wider appreciation of the role that biodiversity plays, not only economically but also in terms of social benefits et cetera, and the way in which biodiversity can be used in a variety of constructive ways. There is a lot more effort on coming to a balanced sustainable view about how resources in biodiversity could be best managed in future. Chairman: That is a very suitable point at which to conclude our hearing this afternoon. Thank you all very much for your evidence, it has been very useful. If anyone was expecting to see the Minister, Barry Gardiner, immediately after this session, I am afraid he has been struck down ill and we will have to rearrange a new date for his hearing, so sorry if you were waiting for him. Thank you again. |