CIHEAM Zaragoza, together with the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA) and the European Forest Institute (EFI), through the EFI’s Mediterranean Facility (EFIMED) organized the advanced course “Valuation of ecosystem services” in Zaragoza (Spain) from 9 to 13 May 2022.
The topic of the course attracted a great deal of interest, as reflected in the high number of applications (110), from 25 countries. The 20 successful participants were professionals from 9 countries (Albania, Egypt, Italy, Lebanon, Morocco, Spain, Tunisia, Turkey and USA), working at universities, research centres, the administration, NGOs, Consultancies or international organizations.
The course took place face-to-face and was delivered by 8 experts from universities and research centres in Belgium, Hungary, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and Spain.
Ecosystem services provide substantial benefits to human well-being and sustainable development. However, these benefits are not widely recognized and integrated into socio-political decisions. Underestimation of the importance of ecosystems supporting human life has led to a continued loss and degradation of ecosystems, biodiversity and the services they provide. Valuation techniques from biology, economics and other social sciences are applied in practice, but neither of these provides a legitimate and full picture of nature's values.
The participants were trained in the main concepts and theories to better understand the pertinence and purpose of valuing the services provided by ecosystems, and by applying these to their own real life cases, they became aware of the role of ecosystem service valuation in diverse decision contexts and for different objectives. During these exercises, lectures and debates, the necessity of adopting inclusive, relevant, transparent, diverse and effective valuation approaches was realized, while main methods and tools for ecosystem service valuation, their applicability and limitations were explored.
The participants were able to identify and select key value methods under different social, cultural, economic and environmental contexts, adapt a valuation approach to various policy contexts, and develop a critical understanding about the opportunities and challenges of ecosystem service valuation for practical application in policy.