1. The ASSETS project:
Attaining Sustainable Services from
Ecosystems through Trade off Scenarios
Photo by Erwin Palacios CI Colombia © The Economist
http://espa-assets.org/
Twitter @espaassets

2. Our Team
 Southampton (UK) (PI Poppy)
plus Dawson, Dundee)
 Conservation International (USA)
(Co-PI Honzak)
 Basque Centre for Climate Change (Spain)
(Co-PI Villa)
 CIAT: International Centre for Tropical
Agriculture (Cali, Colombia) (Co-PI Jarvis)
plus Colombian research centres,
universities and NGOs
 Chancellor College, Malawi, (Co-PI Chiota)
LEAD Africa plus Ministry of Forestry,
Forest Research Institute of Malawi and
Rhodes University South Africa

3. The pursuit of food security through increased agricultural production
(including through changes in land use, land cover and irrigation) is a
key driver of landscape change (UNEP, 2011). At the same time, food
security for many of the world’s rural poor is particularly dependent on
their being able to benefit from the flow of ecosystem services (ES) – the
benefits humans obtain from nature (MA, 2005).

4. The overarching goal is to explicitly quantify the
linkages between the natural ecosystem services
that affect – and are affected by – food security and
nutritional health for the rural poor at the forest-
agricultural interface
Photo by Erwin Palacios CI Colombia

5. A complex ecosystem where agro-
ecosystem meets “natural” ecosystems

6. Choice of Case studies-
cutting across two continents
Africa & Amazonia: different situations…… much in common
• Deforestation: Africa much more advanced
Amazonia in rapid transition due to a
range of drivers
• impacted by climate change and extreme weather events
• issues of extreme poverty, malnutrition and inequality
• Our workshops selected paired case study regions in Malawi
and Colombia- as the best locations to address our research
questions, but also because of links to partner organisations
already active locally

8. ASSETS Research Themes
Theme 1
Drivers, pressures and linkages between
food security, nutritional health and ES

9. Participatory research
 Aims:
– To understand links between ES and food security
– To derive non-monetary values for different ES
 Well-being ranking of study communities
 Focus groups (differentiated by social group) to:
– Understand local concepts of food (in)security
– Identify ES that contribute to food security at different
temporal and spatial scales
 Seasonal calendars – seasonal coping strategies
 Community timelines – inter-annual food security
 Matrix scoring and ranking to prioritise the most important ES
for food security for different groups
 Participatory economic valuation of some ES

11. Participatory Rural
Appraisals (PRA)

12. Participatory Rural
Appraisals (PRA)

13. Participatory Rural
Appraisals (PRA)

14. The Food Estimation and Export for Diet and
Malnutrition Evaluation (FEEDME) Model

15. Measuring household poverty, food
security, and nutrition health
Aims:
 Identify poverty status of households using
objective and subjective measures
(expenditure, subjective wealth, assets)
 Measure food security and nutritional status
of under-five children in households across
the forest-agricultural gradient
 Deeper understanding of coping
mechanisms
 Disseminate to, and feedback from the local
community

16. ASSETS Research Themes
Theme 2
Crises and tipping points: Past, present and
http://blogs.reuters.com/p
future interactions between food insecurity
aerial-view-of-sumatra-
blog/2010/08/12/an-
hotographers-
and ES at the forest-agricultural interface
Coping strategies
Future scenarios

17. ARIES: summary
• A rapid spatial assessment tool for ecosystem
services and their values; not a single model but
an artificial intelligence assisted system that
customizes models to user goals.
• Demonstrates a mapping process for ecosystem
service provision, use, sink and flow while most ES
assessments only look at provision.
• Probabilistic, Bayesian models inform decision-
makers about the likelihood of possible scenarios;
users can explore effects of policy changes and
external events on estimates of uncertainty.

18. Components of the ARIES system

19. Precise spatial representation
and Area of Critical Flow
Area of Critical Flow

20. ASSETS Research Themes
Theme 3
The science-policy interface: How can we manage
ES to reduce food insecurity and increase
nutritional health?
Minimising risk of future environmental change
Influencing policy to better manage http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wor
ld/south_asia/7445570.stm
ES conflicts, trade-offs and
synergies to sustain food security
and health?

21. Pidgeon …Poppy 2006
Proc Roy Soc

22. ASSETS: Science-Policy Interface
Map different factors affecting ES
Identify the factors with highest negative impact on ES (and which are more
relevant for food security and nutritional health)
Identify critical changes and tipping points that can accelerate the
degradation of key ecosystems (that can be addressed through timely policy
interventions)
Report on climate change impacts on ES provision, food security and
nutritional health
Report on current and future impact of land use change on sustainable
provision of ES and food security
Provide input for policies that can counterbalance the most urgent needs of
the population exerting pressure on ES

24. Caqueta’s Development Plan
The project….
– funded by ESPA & implemented by CIPAV,
Conservation International, CIAT & partners
Hopes to…
– give key inputs to contribute to a better management of
Caquetá environmental resources and
– to improve the food security of its population.
More exactly…
– to analyze the links between ecosystem services that have a
predominant role in food security and nutritional health for the
rural poor
Scientific contributions are expected to serve as input for the
formulation of better policies for intervention, prioritization of
actions and management of regional and local authorities

25. Our consortium will undertake world class research on ecosystem services (ES) for poverty
alleviation at the forest-agricultural interface and deliver evidence from a range of sources
and in various formats to inform policy and promote behavioural change.
Photo by Erwin Palacios
CI Colombia
We hope to make a difference to the lives of 2 million poor people living in our case-study
regions – up to 550 million people living in similar environments around the world

26. Thank You - www.espa-assets.org
This presentation was produced by ASSETS (NE-J002267-1), funded with support from the Ecosystem Services for Poverty
Alleviation Programme (ESPA). The ESPA programme is funded by the Department for International Development (DFID),
the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), as part of the
UK’s Living with Environmental Change Programme (LWEC). The views expressed here are those of the authors and do
not necessarily represent those of the funders, the ESPA Programme, the ESPA Directorate, or LWEC.