Recommended
More Related Content
Similar to Ruth Welters - The Valuing Nature Network
Similar to Ruth Welters - The Valuing Nature Network (20)
More from benbnhc
More from benbnhc (20)
Recently uploaded
Recently uploaded (20)
Ruth Welters - The Valuing Nature Network
- 1. Ruth Welters Communicate 25 October 2012 valuing-nature.net
- 2. What is the Valuing Nature Network?
- 3. Network members Over 750 network members in 34 countries Projects engage research community with governance, NGOs & private sector
- 4. Communicating across sectors Practical • People are all over the world • Some people do not read and write Jargon & meaning • Natural science - words you don’t understand • Economics – everyday words with specific meaning • Business - ecosystem services, natural capital, valuing nature?? Motivation •People have different motivations for what they want to know and when and what they are going to use it for.
- 5. River Tamar Ron Smith, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
- 7. Using the environment for everything E.J. Milner-Gulland, Imperial College London
- 8. Business needs Employing Water use in an Cultivation of Cultivation of corn in Consumptive existing almond plantation corn for food France & Germany water use for corporate data. and tomato stuffs and (different policy crops and milk cropping. Central agrifuels. regimes, same production. Valley, California. US Mid West. regulatory env). Punjab. Image courtesy of NASA Earth Observatory Comparing the Comparison of Grey water Comparison of profitability of a externalities of soy treatment (from barley and rice crop per unit of production by extractive sites) for production. water. smallholders and different uses. Rajastan. estates. Brazil. South Africa.
- 9. Challenges of communicating the concept of ‘valuing nature’ to different audiences? • Need to value the natural environment to take it into account in decision-making • Economics language (cost, benefit, goods, value) applied to the natural environment can sound odd
- 10. Valuation • Market price e.g food • Contribution to output e.g. pollination • Avoided costs e.g. water quality • Stated preferences e.g recreation
- 11. Value is not the same as price
- 12. Network event Tuesday 19 March 2013 in London valuing-nature.net ruth@valuing-nature.net 01603 591384
Editor's Notes
- 1. Hello, my name is Ruth Welters and I am the communications manager for the Valuing Nature Network and I started there about 6 months ago. 2. I ’ m very grateful to whoever came up with the 3 questions in the briefing: How has the valuing nature network brought together partners from different fields to work on a common issue? What are the challenges of working across sectors? What are the challenges of communicating the concept of ‘ valuing nature ’ 3. I ’ m going to try to cover all of these but firstly I ’ ll start by giving you a brief idea of what the network is about, for anyone who hasn ’ t heard of it before
- Ok so what is the Valuing Nature Network? Its been going for about 2 years and the first phase is coming to an end very soon, in March 2013 1. It was originally funded by NERC with the aim of getting the economists and natural scientists to work together 2. very soon after, Defra thought it would be useful to them (and they put some money in) 3. And more recently, we ’ ve been approached to do specific work with business The Valuing Nature Network, as you might guess, is a network , in that we have members all over the world. But it is also a research programme. We ’ ve got 10 research projects and these involve researchers from natural science, social science and economics; working with business, policy-makers, NGOs and local interest groups
- Ok, so who ’ ve we got? We ’ ve got over 750 members from all over the world. So we know there is a real appetite for valuing nature .
- Lets have a think about the communications challenges. There ’ s not going to be anything outstanding, here. These are the same issues to do with communicating across different groups such as academics, business and policy, whatever the topic -- Natural science and economists sit on different tables Business & jargon example David Middleton, Business Council for Sustainable Development
- We know there is a real appetite for valuing nature work. The VNN wanted to be not a talking shop but focussed on real issues. Hence 10 projects. I ’ m not going to go through them all, just pick out some examples that will show you what we ’ re working on and how we ’ re working with different groups OK, this is a project in the river Tamar, in Devon and Cornwall. There are lots of things going on that affect the environment There are lots of different groups with an interest in this
- What the project team did was get people together from various groups and try to understand what their interest in the river. Plymouth Marine Laboratory British Trust for Ornithology Tamar Estuaries Consultative Forum - partnership that brings together stakeholders in the estuary management
- This is our only project that works specifically with poor people in developing countries These people rely on the environment in a direct way for everything: housing, food, fuel, water, material for clothes and for their cultural and spiritual integrity. But they are more susceptible to environmental change. E.g. logging. Project is using hand held data loggers for the people to tag where their important sites are for food, meeting places etc.
- This is a project working with the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability leadership. They already do a lot of work with big business. There are 9 small projects within this Each project is just a small amount of days for one economist and one natural scientist got together to work on a specific question for business
- This is something I am only really just getting to grips with myself. I think the first question is about ‘ why value nature? ’ Historically the natural environment has often been treated as a never-ending supply of free services But resources, both natural and financial, are not limitless We want to make use of the environment for all sorts of things, such as to grow food, for wildlife and for recreation. Often when there is a change in the environment afoot, the environment is up against other factors such as building a new road. How do you compare the environment to these other needs?
- I would just like to take this opportunity to flag up the Valuing Nature event on 19 March 2013 in London This where you ’ ll get the full reports about what all the projects have been doing I ’ ve got some copies of the agenda here and if you think you might want to come along, let me know. Thanks