MAES Working Group 18 September 2019

On 18 September 2019, the European Commission DG Environment hosted the second Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystem Services (MAES) stakeholder workshop in Brussels, Belgium. InnoForESt project partner, the European Landowners’ Organization (ELO) was in attendance to participate in the dialogue on the mapping and assessment of forest ecosystem services and communicate on the InnoForESt project as it relates to this topic.

Both the room and the schedule were packed as Stefan Leiner, Head of Biodiversity began the meeting in front of over 60 stakeholders, Commission members, and scholars. Among the first sessions were discussions of the biodiversity policy framework and adoption of guidance documents on EU-level Green infrastructure. These were followed by several brief presentations on progress, proposed methodology and an index-based assessment of ecosystem conditions in Norway. Additionally, Niklas Foresell from International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) presented biodiversity and climate modelling while José Barredo explained the use of MAES forest for land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF).

The conference continued with discussion of the MAES Delivery Conference in Helsinki and the Ecosystem Services Partnership (ESP) 2019 Global Conference in Hanover, Germany. This was followed by a scoreboard for MAES and the knowledge innovation project on an integrated system of natural capital and ecosystem services accounting in the EU (KIP-INCA), a presentation on mapping and value of ecosystem services in Austria, the progress of the project in Hungary and oral updates from other members.

Next were the strategic knowledge needs for post-2020 including the need for reinforcing and upscaling biodiversity monitoring, the Commission’s perspective on knowledge for science and policy, MAES & BiodivERsA and Towards a Biodiversity Partnership in Horizon Europe: Vision.

The meeting concluded with further updates including the MAES ORs, follow-up on EnRoute, the Mapping & assessment for Integrated ecosystem accounting, and a presentation titled ‘We Value Nature’. The next meeting will be held 11 March 2020.

 

By:

Daniel Monteleone

Project Officer

European Landowners’ Organization