WORKSHOP 29 – 30 MAY
Preparatory Paper
Priorities for the restoration of ecosystems and their services in the EU
/
SESSION 3: GUIDANCE for PRIORITY SETTING

Priorities for the restoration of ecosystems’ and their services in theEU- 1|9

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1Objective
2Introduction
3Developing the guidance for priority setting
3.1Identification of target group / users at national and subnational levels
3.2The identification of potential prioritisation criteria
3.3The identification of existing frameworks, approaches and tools for prioritisation
3.4The needs assessment of priority setting across scales

Priorities for the restoration of ecosystems’ and their services in theEU- 1|9

Criteria and guidance for priority-setting at sub-national and national level (SESSION 3 in the Workshop)

1Objective

This preparatory workshop paper should help frame the issues we wish to discuss and the questions we wish to answer during session 3 of the workshop. The outcome of the workshop discussions regarding the guidance document for priority setting should help the contractor to develop useful guidance for priority setting at national and subnational levels.

This paper therefore focuses on providing some background information and some thoughts for reflection that should help the discussions to proceed in a fruitful way during the workshop. It does not offer ready-made solutions, but proposes a number of considerations as to how prioritize ecosystems, their components and services.

2Introduction

Action 6a of the Biodiversity Strategy indicates that " Member States, with the assistance of the Commission will develop a strategic framework to set priorities for ecosystem restoration at sub-national, national and EU level". Session 3 of the workshop will explore the criteria that could be used for setting these priorities. The output from session 3 will be used by the contractors to develop a guidance document that Member States can use as a tool to help them in identifying the national and sub-national priorities for restoration. Sessions 2A and 2B of the workshop will address fundamental issues such as the meaning of restoration and the nature of the 15% restoration target. Clearly, the discussions taking place in session 3 will need to take account of the outcome of these sessions.

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Restoration Prioritization Framework Working Group (RPF WG) on 19 April 2013. The feedback received from the members of the working group has been integrated in this version of the paper.

3Developing the guidance for priority setting

Priority setting for ecosystem conservation and restoration is primarily a matter of societal (political) choice. The process of decision making can and should however be supported by the best available knowledge. The complexity of ecosystems and the current wealth of data and information that is being generated regarding the state, extent and trends of ecosystems and their services makes it very challenging for policy and decision makers to make well informed decisions. Therefore there is a need for an objective, transparent and replicable prioritisation framework to inform and support the final decision making process in an unbiased way.

Prioritisation of the ecosystem restoration is an exercise that needs to be repeated at various scales or levels of decision making and implementation, from EU level down to the local. It should help identify those ecosystems, sites, and restoration activities that in combination, will contribute to reaching the 15% target. Guidance should help decision makers and stakeholders to choose options and assess ecosystem services trade-offs, also in the context of a clear understanding of costs and benefits.

The target as formulated in the EU Biodiversity Strategy speaks of restoring 15% of ecosystems and their services by 2020. As each individual ecosystem can deliver a wide range of goods and services, some of which are mutually exclusive, while others can be delivered simultaneously, there is an opportunity (or a need) for making trade-offs that can be supported by criteria but which are in the end the result of a societal (political) choice.

The guidelines for prioritising restoration of ecosystems and their services to be developed as part of this project cannot deliver a “cookbook” or series of recipes that result in the one and only best option for each situation based on a set of agreed criteria. What it can do is to provide planners, stakeholders and decision makers with guidance on how to combine the available information about the state, functions and services of ecosystems to allow an informed (participatory) decision making process that should ultimately result in an agreed choice for prioritisation that will be unique to any given particular situation, but not the only possible solution.

This discussion paper focuses on the identification of potentially useful criteria to prioritise restoration activities at various decision making and implementation levels. It offers a long list of criteria compiled from various sources.

This section outlines the approach to identify the needs in terms of guidance at national and sub-national levels, to be discussed at the workshop.

The development of the prioritisation guidance involves the following stages:

  1. Identification of target group / users at national and subnational levels
  2. The identification of possible criteria for prioritisation
  3. The identification of existing frameworks and approaches for prioritisation
  4. Needs assessment per target group / user in terms of guidance for priority setting
  5. The development of a prioritisation framework and drafting of the guidance

3.1Identification of target group / users at national and subnational levels

Priority setting for the restoration of ecosystems and their services will be a very complex undertaking involving a wide range of stakeholders. While mainly driven by governments, it will require the active involvement of many other parties.

National / Regional / Local
Decision makers
Policy makers
Planners
Site managers
Land owners
Sector representatives
etc

3.2The identification of potential prioritisation criteria

In order to inform the process of developing the prioritisation framework and the guidance to accompany it, we compiled a list of possible criteria that can be used at various levels of decision making to result in a balanced prioritisation of restoration activities. The criteria have been collected from various published sources. Therefore there is an overlap in the parameters used to describe several similar criteria in this list (. For the sake of clarity, we have grouped criteria in the long list under a small number of headers, as shown here:

Prioritisation criteria groups

  1. Conservation criteria (e.g. designation, conservation status, trends, listed species etc)
  2. Spatial and ecological criteria (e.g. area size, perimeter–to-area ratio, proximity to natural areas etc)
  3. Ecosystem services criteria (e.g. production of biomass, water production, lifecycle maintenance, habitat and gene pool protection, pest and disease control, soil formation and composition, water conditions etc.)
  4. Policy and sector related criteria (e.g. possible synergies with WFD, CAP, MSFD, EIA, SEA, no-net loss, etc)
  5. Societal criteria (e.g. stakeholder acceptance and public support (social feasibility), land ownership & property rights, cultural criteria (also partly covered by cultural ecosystem services, see above))
  6. Economic criteria (e.g. cost benefit ratio of the restoration work (economic feasibility), economic value of ecosystem services, eligibility for various types of public and private funding)

A more comprehensive list of possible criteria to be considered in the various levels of prioritization is presented in Annex 1.

Question for the workshop participants: What criteria seem to have the best prospect for successful application at the various levels of prioritisation and decision making (EU, national, regional, local)?

3.3The identification of existing frameworks, approaches and tools for prioritisation

Guidance needs to be developed setting out how these and other criteria should be taken into account and the linkages between the different criteria, including, where appropriate, how to prioritise between the different criteria. A suitable framework for analysing different criteria is provided by the Multiple Criteria Analysis. In this analysis a larger variety of relevant criteria are analysed and weighed according to their importance. The restoration option (combination of ecosystem type and location) which has the relatively highest rating according to most of the criteria is considered as the best option.

Prioritisation between criteria will be an important issue in the guidance. But also setting priorities within a criterion can be necessary. When aiming to optimize ecosystem services one has to decide which ecosystem services will be favoured, and as such trade-offs will have to be made.

As mentioned above the cost-benefit ratio of the restoration work is a very complex issue to establish accurately. We will need to cross-reference to detailed guidance on CBA, and relevant contributing techniques. These include guidelines on using an ecosystem services framework for identifying and characterizing relevant impacts and on value transfer for valuing non-market economic impacts (eftec, 2010)[1]. The guidance will be compiled in such a way that it is a pragmatic instrument, allowing flexibility in use by different institutional levels of authorities, and will be illustrated with a number of suitable examples (so-called good practices).

Around Europe and the world, many approaches to and tools for prioritisation of conservation and restoration activities have been developed. Regional and local authorities and NGOs use tools and approaches in which they achieve a balance between technical analysis and stakeholder involvement. However, these methods differ from place to place. It is important to develop the prioritisation framework and the guidance in such a way that it can be easily adopted and integrated in existing frameworks of spatial planning and decision making, both in terms of conceptual approaches (also depending on cultural factors) as in terms of tools and technology (regarding the existing knowledge and skills). The guidance and support mechanism developed as part of this project can point to the different existing approaches and tools such as:

  • InVEST Natural Capital Project:
  • C-Plan
  • MARXAN
  • Investment framework for environmental resources
  • BioScore

Question for the workshop participants: What are your additional suggestions for the development of the guidance for restoration prioritisation at different levels?

Question for the workshop participants: What prioritisation frameworks (and tools) for ecosystem restoration (from the local level to the (inter)national one) are you aware of?

3.4The needs assessment of priority setting across scales

In developing guidance for an effective restoration prioritization framework it is important to keep in mind the different time and spatial scales that have a bearing on the process. Time is an important factor when considering the relationship between priority setting, decision making, implementation and assessment of the results: most ecosystems cannot be restored within a time frame of a decade, and some will require decades or centuries to achieve their full potential.

Similarly, spatial scales matter a great deal in the process of decision making and implementation of restoration priorities. The full policy cycle at European level, as in this case the EU Biodiversity Strategy, requires a constant interaction between spatial scales (from the EU down to the site level and back) for information gathering, agenda setting, decision making, implementation, monitoring and correction of policies.

Achieving the target of 15% restoration by 2020 will require various types of actions by a wide range of stakeholders. These include providing a comprehensive framework for national targets, clear instructions and guidance from the national down to the local levels as, in the end, the assessment whether the 15% target has been achieved will have to be based on the aggregated results of local and site level efforts.

There is a need to consider the possible different types of needs in terms of guidance for prioritisation the different level actors involved in the implementation of target 2 will have. It is thus important in the discussions during the workshop to keep in mind this dynamic interaction between the original target setting, its translation to the various levels of decision making, its implementation (mostly at the regional and local levels), its monitoring (also mostly local), and the reporting to finally end up at the EU level where the question if the target has been met will be assessed.

It is thus a process that cuts across different levels and sectors, and each of them should know very well what is expected from them. Therefore part of the guidance should focus on how information regarding priority setting moves across the levels of decision making and implementation.

Depending on the combination of scale (local, e.g. 1:25.000 ) to continental (scale e.g. 1:5 000 000) and the level of governance (municipal up to EU) different approaches and criteria will have to be applied to the process of prioritisation of ecosystem restoration. This has to do with data availability, conceptual or model complexity, detail or resolution of assessment units, etc. The choice of the best prioritisation framework for each level of decision making will also depend on the progress made in the assessment of the state of ecosystems and their services in different MS and regions of the EU.

The choice of the prioritisation framework and consequently the guidance required to apply it also depend on the competences of the different levels of political and administrative decision making in combination with data availability and resolution, and therefore with country size. National level prioritisation and decision making regarding prioritisation is very different for countries like Germany and Malta, to name two extremes.

Member States will have to prioritise restoration activities at national, regional and local levels. This will require an assessment of options, trade-offs, balancing of costs and benefits, and an evaluation of (ecological, social and economic) feasibility.

Question for the workshop participants: What are the needs in terms of guidance for priority setting the different stakeholders starting with the governmental administrations at all levels, are likely to have?

ANNEX 1: Identification of potential prioritisation criteria

Before setting up a prioritisation framework and the guidance to accompany it, we compile a list of possible criteria that can be used at various levels of decision making to result in a balanced prioritisation of restoration activities. The criteria have been collected from various published sources. Therefore there is an overlap in the parameters used to describe several similar criteria in this list. For the sake of clarity, we have grouped criteria in the long list under a small number of headers, as shown here:

Prioritisation criteria groups

Priorities for the restoration of ecosystems’ and their services in theEU- 1|9

  • Conservation criteria
  • Spatial and ecological criteria
  • Ecosystem services criteria
  • Policy and sector related criteria
  • Societal criteria
  • Economic criteria

Priorities for the restoration of ecosystems’ and their services in theEU- 1|9

  1. Conservation criteria

Priorities for the restoration of ecosystems’ and their services in theEU- 1|9

  • Risk of ecosystemcollapse
  • Habitat state of conservation
  • Trend (in conservation status)
  • Natura 2000 (designationunderBirds / Habitats Directive)
  • Nationally designated areas (National Parks etc)
  • Importance for conservation of HD Annex IV species
  • Importance for conservation of bird species
  • Importance for conservation of (national) Red List species

Priorities for the restoration of ecosystems’ and their services in theEU- 1|9

  1. Spatialecological criteria

Priorities for the restoration of ecosystems’ and their services in theEU- 1|9

  • Size
  • Perimeter–to-area ratio
  • Proximitytonaturalareas
  • Proximity to protected and managed nature areas
  • Proximity to critical species habitat (Habitat and Birds Directive, Red List, locally important species)
  • Function in green infrastructure and national ecological network
  • Ecological role in re-establishing healthy multifunctional landscapes
  • Restoration outlook and timeframe (ecological feasibility)
  • Ecosystem state (4 levels suggested for this project)

Priorities for the restoration of ecosystems’ and their services in theEU- 1|9

  1. Ecosystem services criteria (CICES, for full detailed list see

Priorities for the restoration of ecosystems’ and their services in theEU- 1|9

  • Biomass
  • Water
  • Biomass, Fibre
  • Water
  • Biomass-based energy sources
  • Mechanical energy
  • Mediationbybiota
  • Mediationbyecosystems
  • Massflows
  • Liquid flows
  • Gaseous / air flows
  • Lifecycle maintenance, habitat and gene pool protection
  • Pest and disease control
  • Soilformation and composition
  • Water conditions
  • Atmosphericcomposition and climateregulation
  • Physical and experientialinteractions
  • Intellectual and representationalinteractions
  • Spiritual and/or emblematic
  • Otherculturaloutputs

Priorities for the restoration of ecosystems’ and their services in theEU- 1|9

  1. Policy and sector related criteria

Priorities for the restoration of ecosystems’ and their services in theEU- 1|9

  • Potentialsynergieswith WFD
  • Potentialsynergieswith CAP
  • Potentialsynergieswith MSFD
  • Potential synergies with Climate change policy
  • PotentialsynergieswithRegional policy
  • Potential synergies with national, regional and local priorities for conservation and sustainable development
  • Sectors’ willingness and synergies: transport, energy, employment etc
  • Restoration in the context of compensation measures (linked to EIA, SEA and no-net-loss)
  • Cross-border opportunities
  • Land use designation in spatial planning tools and processes (regional land use plan, local land use plan, urban plan etc)

Priorities for the restoration of ecosystems’ and their services in theEU- 1|9