2. Nature’s vulnerability
• “In many cases nature is
ignored or trumped by
other economic or social
priorities, or seen as a
barrier to growth to be
overcome.
• The Ecosystem Approach
and natural capital help
re-frame nature as an
asset to society that
delivers many benefits”.
Scott 2014
3. Plan
• Defining Boundaries
• How to be NEATer
• Making a tool of (my)
yourself
• NEATer Case Studies
• Summary and
Questions
4. What are (y)our boundaries
of concern?
Built Environment Natural Environment
5. 12 NEAT Principles
1:Policy and decision making are matters of societal
CHOICE
2: DEVOLVE decisions to the lowest appropriate level
3: Consider any ADJACENT effects
4: Manage systems economically for MULTIPLE
BENEFITS
5: Maintain structure and function of ECOSYSTEM
SERVICES
6: Manage systems within their LIMITS
6. Contd.
7: Manage at appropriate spatial and
temporal SCALES
8: Recognize different TEMPORAL scales
and lag-effects
9: Recognize that CHANGE is inevitable.
10: Seek BALANCE between conservation &
use
11: Consider all relevant INFORMATION
SOURCES
12: INVOLVE all relevant sectors of society
7. How to be NEATer : Using
the decision making cycle
• IDEAS
• DELIVER
• From stages to
guidance and
prompts
• Suitable tools
• Relevant case studies
9. Value Ecosystem Services
109 The planning system
should contribute to and
enhance the natural and
local environment by:
• recognising the wider
benefits of ecosystem
services;
13. Nature Improvement Area
• Bigger Better More
Joined up
• Landscape scale
• Enhanced
involvement,
education and cultural
services
• Optional planning
policy protection
14. BUT How Not to Value
Nature
• Selective cherry
picking of ecosystem
services
• Using financial values
alone
19. Duty to Cooperate
“To engage constructively,
actively and on an ongoing
basis to maximise the effectiveness
of Local Plan preparation
in the context of strategic
cross boundary matters”.
20. Beyond Housing Fetish
• IDENTIFY Objectively
assessed housing
need
• 5 year housing supply
• REVISE via
constraints or
neighbours
22. Viability
• Economic – Developer driven based on
hidden models of delivery costs lacking
equity (social and environmental justice)
• Social – e.g Affordable housing and
community infrastructure/services
• Environmental – e.g limits and thresholds
26. N Devon &Torridge Plan
• Policy ST11: Enhancing
Environmental Assets:
The quality of northern
Devon’s natural environment
will be protected and
enhanced by: …
(g) conserving and enhancing
the robustness of northern
Devon’s ecosystems and the
range of ecosystem services
they provide;” (North Devon
and Torridge Local Plan, 2013:
54
27. Key messages
• Need to work across built vs natural
Environment divide
• Complex ecosystem vocabulary
BUT
1. Hooks as starting point for
decisions and tool
development/use
2. Effective partnerships as key
delivery vehicles
3. Shared language(s) of multiple
benefits unites stakeholders.
4. Importance of using EA principles
collectively to inform plan and
decisions
5. Learn by doing
28. Lets All be NEATer
• Alister.Scott@bcu.ac.uk
• @bcualisterscott
Editor's Notes
This talk will highlight work I have led as part of the NEAFO dealing with the mainstreaming of the ecosystem approach in policy and decision making. A key partner in that work has been Natural England through Ruth Waters, Tim Sunderland and Mike Grace.
The issue as to why we need to mainstream the ecosystem approach into policy and decision making is illustrated in natures inherent vulnerability to economic growth particularly in the present political climate. My own work highlights this.
Most professional people fall into one of the following camps. My own work has highlighted a divide between them in terms of the models, governance, approaches and policies that are used with relatively limited interaction and mutual understanding. This is at its worst in university courses in ecology and planning. Natural England have the role to act as bridges between these hitherto disparate worlds.
These principles are slightly adapted from the convention on biological diversity and in my view provide the starting point for how we should make decisions.
Now for most the vocabulary of ecosystem science is not sexy or attractive so we need to be subtle (hence the wolf in sheeps clothing)
Our starting point has to be the policy cycle which is familiar to most people who make any decision or contribute to the stages within one.
What we have done as a team is to try and translate those principles into guidance and prompts for decision makers using our experience and expertise allowing users to identify the bundle of tools to address their challenges or tasks.
Crucially those tools have been selected as the most influential in decision making and where they can be ecosystem proofed (explicitly or covertly)
To help with people understanding how to progress successfully through each stage there are case studies of practice to help show the lessons learnt.
The idea is to create some detailed guidance to maximise ecosystem thinking through all stages of the process. Note that we have ideas and deliver in our cycle. These are often neglected in traditional models.
Using and translating ecosystem science to the key policy documents is another way of hooking people in.
So with regard to two documents that all NE staff should have read; the NPPF and the NEWP we can start to identify key areas for attack (our wolf in sheeps clothing appears again. )
So from mapping ES you can then identify opportunities and select multiple ecosystem service bundles and make trade off decsions to identify the best policy forward. .
Mapping (SURVEY) is a key first step in ecosystem science mainstreaming.
Here your own NCAs provide that basic assessment of a landscape resource.
When we then move to identifying opportunities we can see how different environmental opportunities identified impact on the ecosystem services. However the quality of the data remains key to the integrity of such findings. You can then decide on a particular trade off
So within NIAs we see approaches to favour particular ecosystem services in terms of their biodiversity value
But there is an inherent risk with the treatment of ecosystem services in isolation away from the ecosystem approach. Here the financial values of the environmental assets may distort and corrupt good decision making
It is important that we use the 12 principles of the ecosystem approach together and not simply cherry pick. This policy based evidence is deeply problematic and al ittle ecosystem knowledge can indeed be a dangerous thing.
But it is here that biodiversity offsetting can be really useful in highlighting this approach. The approach is sensible provided that the mitigation hierarchy is followed and BO does not become an end in itself. It is part of a process of biodiversity impact assessment as practised in Warwickshire.
Crucially here some 19 agreements amounting to 2 million pounds have bene pursued here over the last three years. It helps link issues of GI , connectvitly and irreplaceability into a financial equation within all planning applications.
Now regulation is the key tool that NE is burdened with. Our work highlighted the key role that impact assessment should play in the policy and decision making game. Thus we developed full guidance drawing on examples where both and EIA have been used within an ecosystem services framework.
Many criticise these tools as impotent or bureaucratic but it largely down to how they are used. In my view they offer fantastic potential.
It is also worth highlighting how NE should get involved in both Cil and Suds issues. CIL has the potential to be very productive for natural environments when used in conjunction with public education about the value of nature in key areas. So for example moorland and upland catchments provide many beneficial services to communities and if they can be seen as vital infrastructure planning authorities can start to use monies for their enhancement. This is not being f done and in my view represents a missed opportunity.
Under incentives I suspect we will find biodiversity offsetting as the government is unlikely to follow Warwickshires lead and make it a mandatory part of a BIA
Most of you are familiar with PES schemes and in our guidance what we did was to highlight where the PES guidance produced by Defra was weak. We also did this with the Treasury Green book rather than create yet another tool.
PES schemes are most notable in wetlands in the UK where upland catchments can be used to help stop down stream flooding. However work has been done for visitor payback and other agricultural schemes.
There is also TIF schemes which have not been used in the UK to any significant extent yet. But again in my view they offer a route into the most deprived areas. Nick Grayson will talk about these in the context of his ecosystem challenge map for Birmingham and what they do is enable investment to come into deprived communities where an evidence base might highlight the need for improved GI etc and local food growing. The key is that the future business rate rises are used to help pay for the upfront investment in infrastructure including ecosystem services. This is a way to get out of the vicious cycle of decline facing osme of our most deprived communities.
The NPPF has replaced the system of regional planning over strategic issues with the duty to cooperate. Many of the issues NE staff grapple with fall under this larger than local scale. Yet all too often the issue falls under the housing fetish where SHMAS and SHLAs dominate the planning inspectors acronyms. Yet climate change, flooding, biodiversity all ijmapct in this domain and rarely feature in DTC issues. Here there is a role ofr NE to widen its impact. .
Similarly the viability issue as defined in the NPPF/NPPG is solely based on the economic translation. There are key components of viability that are central to the ecosystem approach and yet are absent from the NPPF but then set within NEWP the issue of ecological connectivity and viability is ever present. The Lawton Review and NIAs being cases in point.
From the localism act we see the gradual rise of neighbourhood plans. Local people expressing their wishes fro the future direction of development with again scope for nature and landscape conservation based on good survey data. Have NE staff got a orle here in providing guidance for such groups.
I have used case studies throughout this talk but for many they are the innovators or risk takers people sticking their head above the parapet of academic debate and discourse. Wanting to go beyond the words to actions on the ground. To do this there are many other considerations political and pragmatic that mean small steps are taken
From all our case studies we have produced a model of this.
It shows that for many that retrofit might be the best way of achieving ecosystem thinking. The Cotswold AONB for example used an action plan linking ecosystem services to previously agreed policies. This is the political reality of what could be achieved by a partnership of local authorities.
The GBSLEP spatial plan did not use ecosystem services explicitly; rather it used the principles of the ecosystem approach to try and serve as guidance for gthep lan being htep illars for good spatial planning. Indeed when ecosystem services terminology was used they group decided they did not want to go down that path even though they had actively embracved the 12 principles. Lessons for how messagers are communicated there.
North Devon and Torridge have a joint local plan and again a sense of pragmatism is evident. This is the first local plan to make ESF explicit but it does remain fixed in the environment section. However it does have dedicated polices and crucially a ecosystem services mapping framework for a masterplan for a large housing development
