How to plan for Nature Skills for local biodiversity Integrating biodiversity into local plans and actions offers many opportunities for local sustainable development. As a result of on-going decentralization, local administrations have increasing responsibilities for the implementation of biodiversity related policies. “BD SKILLS – Skills for Local Biodiversity” has developed a biodiversity training approach for local administrations’ staff based on best available practice. Trained staff is able to better integrate biodiversity into local plans and actions. The training improves their technical knowledge, skills and personal development and increases their value on the job market influenced by the greening of the economy. As a result national and regional biodiversity related policy objectives are better integrated at the local level. Further information on www.biodiversityskills.eu This document has been prepared as part of the international Leonardo da Vinci Project “Skills for Local Biodiversity” carried out by a consortium of seven partners from five Northwest European countries. Project partners Alfred Toepfer Akademie für Naturschutz, Germany Atelier technique des espaces naturels, France ECNC-European Centre for Nature Conservation Gelderse Natuur- en Milieufederatie, the Netherlands Natureparif, France Natuurpunt Educatie, Belgium Yorkshire and Humber Environment Trust (UK) Project leader and contact ECNC-European Centre for Nature Conservation P.O. Box 90154 NL-5000 LG Tilburg The Netherlands www.ecnc.org Disclaimer and copyright Disclaimer – The BD SKILLS team, led by ECNC, is solely responsible for the contents of this publication. It does not represent the opinion of the European Community, nor is the EC responsible for any use that might be made of information appearing herein. The views expressed in this document do not necessarily constitute ECNC policy and do not necessarily reflect its views or opinions. Copyright © ECNC-European Centre for Nature Conservation Intellectual property rights are vested in ECNC and its project partners. Therefore, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic mechanical, photocopying recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of ECNC. Content Foreword 5 Introduction and overview 7 Understanding biodiversity and ecosystem services 14 Getting to grips with policy and decision-making 32 Biodiversity planning concepts and approaches 48 Information and evidence to plan for nature 70 Valuing ecosystem services and biodiversity 84 Engaging and communicating with stakeholders 96 Foreword Action planning skills in practice How to plan for Nature Foreword Mainstreaming biodiversity and ecosystem services in local and regional planning is becoming increasingly important in order to help ensure the development of society and economy within environmental limits. However, many interactions between biodiversity, ecosystem services and local (development) planning remain insufficiently known to many local authorities and planners. Within the project “BD SKILLS - Skills for Local Biodiversity”, co-financed by the European Leonardo da Vinci programme, ECNC-European Centre for Nature Conservation and its six project partners (see colophon) have developed a training package to better reflect and integrate biodiversity and ecosystem services in local plans and projects. The package was developed for, and in close cooperation with local planners from the five participating countries. In response to its worldwide rapid and continued decline, biodiversity conservation now features high on the international political agenda. After having focused for several decades on the protection of sites and species, through awareness raising and designation of protected areas, the approach since the 1990ies has increasingly shifted towards the mainstreaming of biodiversity conservation and ecosystem goods and services into most of the main policy fields and sectors. It has been recognised that in order to implement the comprehensive policies and make them work, new partnerships with a wide range of actors are needed. Local and regional authorities, together with business enterprises and economic sectors are key players to translate the international and national biodiversity strategies and action plans into practical results at local and regional level. Under the aegis of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) Conference of Parties that met in Nagoya in 2010 “a Plan of Action on Sub-national Governments, Cities, and other Local Authorities for Biodiversity was endorsed, and decision X/22 including the Plan was adopted by 193 CBD Parties. The Plan calls for capacity building and dissemination of best practices […] and aims at providing national governments with opportunities to work together with sub-national governments, cities, and other local authorities on biodiversity strategies and action plans.” At the same time a major international effort lead by the economist Pavan Sukhdev - The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) - made a compelling economic case for the conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity. Its findings and recommendations are presented in a series of reports targeted at the major biodiversity stakeholder groups, including regional and local policy makers. This training package aims to contribute to the successful implementation of biodiversity policies by improving the knowledge and skills of local planners to integrate the findings summarised by the CBD and TEEB, as well as local examples and approaches, in their daily activities. It shows that the conservation of biodiversity is not an obstacle to development, but a major and valuable resource for sustainable livelihoods and communities. I wish all the participants in this training an inspiring and productive experience and I hope they will find the interactive role plays and planning exercises entertaining and enjoyable. Sir Brian Unwin KCB, Chairman of ECNC 6 Introduction and overview Introduction and overview Action planning skills in practice How to plan for Nature Background and context The project grew out of the observation that throughout Europe, a process of further political and administrative decentralization was devolving ever more responsibilities regarding planning and environmental management to the local levels. At the same time, as internationally recognized, the conservation of biodiversity is considered one of the most important environmental challenges humanity is facing together with climate change. As a result of these two developments, local administrations are required to implement ever more biodiversity-related policies as part of their planning activities. However, in spite of the general increase in awareness about biodiversity, ecosystem services and working within environmental limits, specific knowledge on how this relates to day-to-day planning activities remains largely unknown. This calls for an urgent increase in the skills and knowledge of staff of local administrations to enable them to integrate and reflect biodiversity and ecosystem services in their local planning efforts. In the current international, and especially European policy debate, biodiversity conservation is focusing ever more on a utilitarian approach to nature. The economically very significant ecosystem services which biodiversity underpins are used as a strong argument for society to conserve nature in its widest form. On the one hand this allows conservationists to communicate with economists, policy and decision makers in terms that resonate well with their priorities: the economic value of nature’s (ecosystem) services to society, expressed in monetary terms. On the other hand it reduces nature’s complexity, beauty and intrinsic value to that of a commodity, to be owned, traded and speculated with at leisure. This is especially worrying for those rare, special and vulnerable habitats and species that have little or no (yet known) usefulness or direct economic value to society. However, even the most distinguished conservation organizations are nowadays following the path of valuing nature’s services and goods, involving a wide range of businesses in an attempt to help conservation through a market-based approach, in a way quite similar to what has been developed for climate change strategies (cap and trade, etc). The challenge of the local planner (and the stakeholders in the planning process he deals with as part of his work) is to find the right balance between the socio-economic and the intrinsic approach to nature conservation. Such an approach needs to take account of many factors including policy, governance and sector integration, technical solutions, valuation and assessment and communication and participation. Perhaps the most promising avenue for local planning challenges is to realise that local sustainable development and a wide range socioeconomic issues can be solved in such a way that they provide each other with mutual benefits. The case for biodiversity and ecosystem services in local planning Taking the value of the services we get from biodiversity into account in planning is not an ‘optional extra’, it should be central to the local decision making by putting the value of the natural environment at the heart of local spatial planning because: • Recent compelling evidence suggests that ecosystem services provided and supported by biodiversity represent a major economic value. The social and economic costs (€ 50 billion 8 Action planning skills in practice How to plan for Nature Introduction and overview each year globally) that are associated with their degradation has been convincingly demonstrated in the international study ‘The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity’ (TEEB 2010). • The services provided by biodiversity help society avoid significant costs and have a pivotal role in a wide range of policy areas relevant to local planning: health, sustainable business models, culture, adaptation to climate change, agriculture, sustainable regional development. • Integrating biodiversity and ecosystem services in local overall planning process helps identifying nature based solutions that provide mutual co-benefits for nature and sectorial activities. Understanding and managing the impact of planning decisions have on the ability of our natural systems to function will help the local administrations: • to increase long–term resilience of planned projects; • to reduce risks to planning objectives from failing natural systems; • to reduce public costs from degraded natural services. Assessing the general environmental impact of policy options has long been a part of the impact assessment process and it is now possible to make more sophisticated assessments of the, previously less visible, costs to society from damage to our natural assets and economic benefits from managing them well. Taking the value of biodiversity into account in planning proposals Considering and valuing biodiversity and ecosystem services in decision-making is known as taking an ‘ecosystems approach’. This training can be considered as a practical introduction to using an ecosystems approach in local planning. It gives a general introduction on key knowledge and skills and by sign-posting to a range of detailed resources, case-studies and further reading on specific topics such as communication, valuation and systematic thinking. Applying the knowledge and skills will differ according to the local situation, but the following aspects will almost always be part of the activities: • Looking for opportunities to work with biodiversity to deliver planning objectives; • Assessing the positive and negative impacts of the planning options on the services we get from biodiversity; • Thinking long-term and large-scale; • Thinking outside traditional planning boundaries; • Carrying out some sort of valuation of the biodiversity and ecosystem services involved; • Involving both the producers and beneficiaries of ecosystem services in the planning process. The purpose of this training This training has been developed to give planners the basic understanding of the mutual relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem services and sustainable local planning. As such this training goes beyond ‘protecting nature’. It rather focuses on working with nature in a positive way, by taking the services nature provides into account into local planning. After completing the self-study, assisting to the lectures, studying the cases, taking part in the excursion and participating in the 9 Action planning skills in practice How to plan for Nature Introduction and overview working groups, participants will have acquired a broad understanding of what biodiversity and ecosystem services can do for local planning activities. Some participants, for example those working at larger local authorities, are specialist environmental scientists with a good understanding of ecology and spatial planning technologies, while other must address such a wide range of issues that they are rather more generalists. Therefore this training consists of a series of modules that mutually reinforce each other and focus on learning, experiencing and integrating (skills). The training should provide a basic understanding of key concepts of biodiversity and ecosystem services, conservation principles and approaches, the policy framework, valuation techniques and communication skills and how they interact with other sectors of society, data needs and interpretation, and the mutual co-benefits between conservation and achieving other important socio-economic goals in the field of public health, climate change mitigation and adaptation, tourism and recreation etc. Objectives of the training In many countries the management of biodiversity and the implementation of biodiversity related policies is a statutory obligation of local authorities. However, working with biodiversity can also bring benefits to local communities, and local planners are well placed to signal these opportunities and integrate them in their planning proposals. This training has been primarily developed for local planners, but is made widely available for all stakeholders in the local planning process. The objectives of the training are to: • Increase awareness, knowledge and understanding of the links between biodiversity, ecosystem services and local planning; • Equip local planners with the skills to better manage the biodiversity and ecosystems they impact and depend on; • Demonstrate the opportunities for using the many co-benefits between biodiversity conservation and other societal needs at the local level. It is not within the scope of this training to dig deep into all of these subjects, but rather to provide you with the knowledge and skills needed to explore some essential relations that are often overlooked in traditional planning approaches. Throughout the training, the ecosystem approach will be the central concept we follow. It is a mechanism developed and promoted by the Convention on Biological Diversity and it is a broad framework applicable to a wide range of planning situations, although it gives some clear rules. Within the broad framework of the ecosystem approach at local level there is much room for more specific approaches better reflecting local situations. Those specific to our area of interest (North West Europe) are also explained. The target audience The primary target audience for this training is the planners at small to medium local authorities in North-West Europe. However, planners do not work in a vacuum and typically interact with a wide range of stakeholders in the spatial planning process. These include the staff and heads of other departments 10 Action planning skills in practice How to plan for Nature Introduction and overview within the administration, but also the representatives of many sectors affected by spatial decisions: housing, infrastructure, agriculture, forestry etc. As biodiversity and ecosystem services are presented as a cross-cutting theme, needing to be reflected in most sectors, key actors in these sectors should also have a basic level of understanding, and could thus benefit from participating in (parts of) this training. Use of acquired skills and knowledge in work activities Depending on one’s position inside the administration, there are several ways to take up the integration of biodiversity and ecosystems services into local planning by using the ecosystems approach. Equipped with an enhanced understanding of biodiversity and ecosystems services for local planning and the skills for applying the ecosystems approach, participants in this training can start in a number of ways. Communicating within the department, between departments and with stakeholders and enthusing partners to adopt the ecosystems approach is a key to success. It therefore receives quite some attention in the course. slides handbook knowledge job workshop Training materials Assimilation plan policy / development decision / conversation / precentation Application Senior planners or Heads of planning department can consider the natural services the local authority’s strategic priorities rely most upon, the value of these to the community, and the impacts on the assets providing these services. They could: • Add an agenda item to the management team or board meeting about natural services and natural capital • Ask an adviser or economist to provide you with some advice or a presentation on this agenda • Invite a regional or national agency to make a presentation on the subject • Commission a short scoping project which will use the approach set out in this training and highlight key implications for your policy areas • Ask a planner to read the manual and take the training and highlight the key implications and options for applying this to the planning process • Ask the analysts to consider implications for the planning strategy and economic valuation work. Spatial planners could consider the implications of the training for their specific activities: • Listing the natural services the community relies on using the list of ecosystem services. • Read the training manual. • Work through the municipal performance assessment to see how the local administration is already doing and find out what else could be done to minimise costs and risks associated with natural services and maximise opportunities from them. • Discuss this agenda with analysts and delivery partners. 11 Introduction and overview Action planning skills in practice How to plan for Nature Structure of the training This training consists of a number of modules: • Self-study • Lecture • Excursion • Working group • Evaluation Self-study: Prior to the course, the participants are invited to read through the handbook, which gives a detailed description of the six main subjects of the training outlined below. Lecture: The subject matter is further developed during the lectures, in which the trainers teach about the six subjects in an interactive manner, highlighting the main messages from the handbook mainly through the use of practical examples and question and answer sessions. Excursion: An excursion is organised as part of the full version of the course. Depending on the venue where the training is being held and the time available, cases included in the handbook or on the website may be visited. Otherwise, the trainer organises an excursion to an interesting site nearby. Guidelines are provided to make the programme of the excursion as relevant as possible to the training (e.g. by using the site as one of the cases in the working group. Prepare Learn Experience Integrate Prepare Handouts Field visit Exercise Website Presentations Case studies Discussions Working group: The working group brings together in a planning exercise the theoretical knowledge of the selfstudy and lectures and the practical experience gained during the excursion. A planning challenge involving biodiversity and ecosystem services is being addressed by the trainees in an interactive and participative way by working in small groups. Results are presented in plenary and discussed. Evaluation: Is an essential part of the course when the results of the training are assessed, in group (through a discussion moderated by the trainer) and individually (by filling out an evaluation form). The modules can be used in different combinations to accommodate to the needs, interests and time availability of the target audience. Training materials The full training package consists of the following resources and materials; all available on the website for downloading (the Handbook is also available in printed format): • Handbook: six thematic chapters • Trainer’s manual: it gives detailed instructions about how to prepare and deliver the training, including excursion and working groups. 12 Action planning skills in practice How to plan for Nature Introduction and overview • Lecture notes: these help the trainer prepare the lectures. Prompting the right questions and giving the information corresponding to each slide of the power point presentations in clear bullet points. • Power points: are visual aids to be used as a support for the lectures. They contain little text, but mostly photographs and graphs. • Hand outs: pdfs of the power point presentations can be downloaded for distribution. However, if the power points are adapted, hand outs should be made of these. • Evaluation form: to be distributed to the trainees at the end of the course • Web site: offers all the information online and for downloading, plus many links to relevant sites and detailed case study descriptions. For all training materials: www.biodiversityskills.eu 13