Integrating ecosystem markets to co-ordinate landscape-scale public benefits from nature

Ecosystem markets are proliferating around the world in response to increasing demand for climate change mitigation and provision of other public goods. However, this may lead to perverse outcomes, for example where public funding crowds out private investment or different schemes create trade-offs between the ecosystem services they each target. The integration of ecosystem markets could address some of these issues but to date there have been few attempts to do this, and there is limited understanding of either the opportunities or barriers to such integration. This paper reports on a comparative analysis of eleven ecosystem markets in operation or close to market in Europe, based on qualitative analysis of 25 interviews, scheme documentation and two focus groups. Our results indicate three distinct types of markets operating from the regional to national scale, with different modes of operation, funding and outcomes: regional ecosystem markets, national carbon markets and green finance. The typology provides new insights into the operation of ecosystem markets in practice, which may challenge traditionally held notions of Payment for Ecosystem Services. Regional ecosystem markets, in particular, represent a departure from traditional models, by using a risk-based funding model and aggregating both supply and demand to overcome issues of free-riding, ecosystem service trade-offs and land manager engagement. Central to all types of market were trusted intermediaries, brokers and platforms to aggregate supply and demand, build trust and lower transaction costs. The paper outlines six options for blending public and private funding for the provision of ecosystem services and proposes a framework for integrating national carbon markets and green finance with regional ecosystem markets. Such integration may significantly increase funding for regenerative agriculture and conservation across multiple habitats and services, whilst addressing issues of additionality and ecosystem service trade-offs between multiple schemes

‘Connectivity’: Seeking conditions and connections for radical discourses and praxes in health, mental health and social work

This paper begins with reflections on the development and spread of the ideas, discourse and praxis of radical social work in the 1970s and the cross-fertilisation of these discourses and praxes with discourses and praxes within radical health and mental health initiatives. During these years, for many in the fields of health, mental health and social work, their work and their lives were characterised by active involvement in a range of campaigns focused upon health, mental health and social work issues, together with shared values of more transparent and supportive work with users of health, mental health and social work services and a commitment to greater understanding through social and political theorising. This analysis is compared with the present where workplace cultures in health and social work emphasise meeting delivery and performance targets. It is argued that workers currently in health, mental health and social work with children and with adults share many similar experiences. Hegemonic discourses and praxes appear immoveable, but dissatisfaction with the status quo can become a disinhibiting factor. Building from experiences and analysis, exploration is begun into what conditions and connections might be needed now to develop radical discourses and praxes in health, mental health and social work

A place-based approach to payments for ecosystem services

Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes are proliferating but are challenged by insufficient attention to spatial and temporal inter-dependencies, interactions between different ecosystems and their services, and the need for multi-level governance. To address these challenges, this paper develops a place-based approach to the development and implementation of PES schemes that incorporates multi-level governance, bundling or layering of services across multiple scales, and shared values for ecosystem services. The approach is evaluated and illustrated using case study research to develop an explicitly place-based PES scheme, the Peatland Code, owned and managed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s UK Peatland Programme and designed to pay for restoration of peatland habitats. Buyers preferred bundled schemes with premium pricing of a primary service, contrasting with sellers’ preferences for quantifying and marketing services separately in a layered scheme. There was limited awareness among key business sectors of dependencies on ecosystem services, or the risks and opportunities arising from their management. Companies with financial links to peatlands or a strong environmental sustainability focus were interested in the scheme, particularly in relation to climate regulation, water quality, biodiversity and flood risk mitigation benefits. Visitors were most interested in donating to projects that benefited wildlife and were willing to donate around £2 on-site during a visit. Sellers agreed a deliberated fair price per tonne of CO2 equivalent from £11.18 to £15.65 across four sites in Scotland, with this range primarily driven by spatial variation in habitat degradation. In the Peak District, perceived declines in sheep and grouse productivity arising from ditch blocking led to substantially higher prices, but in other regions ditch blocking was viewed more positively. The Peatland Code was developed in close collaboration with stakeholders at catchment, landscape and national scales, enabling multi-level governance of the management and delivery of ecosystem services across these scales. Place-based PES schemes can mitigate negative trade-offs between ecosystem services, more effectively include cultural ecosystem services and engage with and empower diverse stakeholders in scheme design and governance

Attaining composure through breath-awareness: a phenomenological account of the use of the breath in social work

This article is the first to address breathing in social work directly. It sits within the phenomenological tradition and as such provides accounts from social work education and practice as a means of recognizing a commonality of experience. The article argues for a considered, conscious use of the breath in order for the social worker to gain a state of calm or composure and also to be able to foster composure in others – the so called “circle of breath”. The focus is on the skills of the worker but also on the meanings of the choices they make. A phenomenological approach to the topic of composure is contrasted with a psychotherapeutic approach. No particular method is advocated although several exercises designed to aid breath awareness are suggested. A discussion is threaded throughout on the relationship between the breath and spirituality in social work, also considered in phenomenological terms

Racial and Imperial Thinking in International Theory and Politics: Truman, Attlee and the Korean War

- Connects the background ideas of race and empire to world politics - Uses case of Truman and Attlee in the Korean War - Argues that liberal-realist internationalists’ assumptions about the US-led post-war order obscure those background ideas and fail to understand the character of the post-war order - Argues liberal-realist internationalism is akin to a legitimating ideology rather than an explanatory theory - Argues that such failings render liberal internationalism inadequate to explain or prescribe ways for the United States/West to manage the ‘rise of the rest’ today This article connects the background ideas of race and empire to world politics by looking at the world views and actions of Truman and Attlee in the Korean War. The article argues that liberal-realist internationalists’ assumptions about the US-led post-war order obscure those background ideas and fail to understand the character of the post-war order. I consider two kinds of ‘background ideas’—policy-makers’ and those embedded in liberal internationalism. Put together, these ideas render liberal-realist internationalism akin to a legitimating ideology rather than an explanatory theory. More broadly, and in the longer run, such failure to comprehend the character of the post-war order, and the roles of race, empire and periphery war in it, renders the theory inadequate to explain or prescribe ways for the United States/West to manage the ‘rise of the rest’ today

The town councillor,

Mode of access: Internet

Looking to the future of ecosystem services: a review of available approaches.

Benefits provided by the natural environment that support future human wellbeing are increasingly being compromised by human activities. Consequently, the effects of socio-economic and environmental drivers on the future provision of these 'ecosystem services' are highly uncertain. It is therefore increasingly important that decision-makers in policy and practice assess the range of futures that they may face, in order to adapt effectively to maintain the essential functions that ecosystems perform to support human wellbeing. This narrative review therefore evaluates futures research tools for the roles they may play in developing and implementing ecosystem services policy and practice. It unpacks their scope, purpose and efficacy, and evaluates how such futures tools have been used to work with ecosystem services. It provides a typology of futures tools based on the epistemological beliefs that underpin them and the extent to which they construct futures as a directed or emergent process. It considers futures tools for assessing ecosystem services ranging from the qualitative to quantitative. The paper concludes that futures tools for assessing and planning ecosystem service futures must be flexible, heterogeneous, scalable, transparent, valid, and useable by stakeholders