By Dr. Kariuki Muigua, PhD (Leading Environmental Law Scholar, Policy Advisor, Natural Resources Lawyer and Dispute Resolution Expert from Kenya), Winner of Kenya’s ADR Practitioner of the Year 2021, ADR Publication of the Year 2021 and CIArb (Kenya) Lifetime Achievement Award 2021*
Ecosystem services as a concept and framework for understanding the way in which nature benefits people has led to a suite of approaches that are increasingly being used to support sustainable management of biodiversity and ecosystems. While the ecosystem approach is a well-established strategy for the integrated management of land, water and living resources that promotes conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way, the Ecosystem Services Approach (ESA) takes this strategy one step further, and through the inclusion of ecosystem services ensures that the complex relationships between nature and humans are more clearly understood and explicitly included.
Ecosystem-based management, with a primary focus on ecosystem services, is a viable approach as it can also help broaden constituencies and influence decision-making to support conservation, as an integrated approach to natural resource management that considers the entire ecosystem, including humans, and has the goal of “maintaining an ecosystem in a healthy, productive and resilient condition so that it can provide the services humans want and need.” An Ecosystem Services Approach (ESA) has been associated with four common characteristics: (1) ecosystem services are valued on the basis of their benefits to humans; (2) ecosystem services are underpinned by ecosystem processes and this relationship is made explicit; (3) the approach requires interdisciplinary collaboration and stakeholder engagement at multiple scales; and (4) the outcomes of the approach can be incorporated into environmental policy and management decisions.
Ecosystem Services Approach under Convention on Biological Diversity
The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)calls for cooperation among Contracting States in conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. As for individual States, the CBD requires them to develop national strategies, plans or programmes for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity or adapt for this purpose existing strategies, plans or programmes which should reflect, inter alia, the measures set out in this Convention relevant to the Contracting Party concerned; and integrate, as far as possible and as appropriate, the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity into relevant sectoral or cross-sectoral plans, programmes and policies.
As for sustainable use of components of biological diversity, CBD requires Contracting States to, as far as possible and as appropriate: integrate consideration of the conservation and sustainable use of biological resources into national decision-making; adopt measures relating to the use of biological resources to avoid or minimize adverse impacts on biological diversity; protect and encourage customary use of biological resources in accordance with traditional cultural practices that are compatible with conservation or sustainable use requirements; support local populations to develop and implement remedial action in degraded areas where biological diversity has been reduced; and encourage cooperation between its governmental authorities and its private sector in developing methods for sustainable use of biological resources.
CBD also requires each Contracting Party to, as far as possible and as appropriate, adopt economically and socially sound measures that act as incentives for the conservation and sustainable use of components of biological diversity. In order to build capacity through research and training, CBD requires all the Contracting Parties, taking into account the special needs of developing countries, to: establish and maintain programmes for scientific and technical education and training in measures for the identification, conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity and its components and provide support for such education and training for the specific needs of developing countries; promote and encourage research which contributes to the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, particularly in developing countries, inter alia, in accordance with decisions of the Conference of the Parties taken in consequence of recommendations of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice: and in keeping with the provisions of Articles 16, 13 and 20, promote and cooperate in the use of scientific advances in biological diversity research in developing methods for conservation and sustainable use of biological resources.
In addition to this, the Contracting Parties should: promote and encourage understanding of the importance of, and the measures required for, the conservation of biological diversity, as well as its propagation through media, and the inclusion of these topics in educational programmes; and cooperate, as appropriate, with other States and international organizations in developing educational and public awareness programmes, with respect to conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. In order to reduce or eliminate adverse impacts on biodiversity, CBD requires States to invest in impact assessment measures and/or procedures.
Ecosystem Services Approach and COP 26
At COP 26 in Glasgow, Scotland, Climate change experts from United Nations University (UNU) and World Food Programme (WFP) encouraged countries to embrace better integration of nature-based solutions in adaptation planning. Arguably, these nature-based solutions can have the twin benefits of climate adaptation and biodiversity conservation. Further, embracing nature-based solutions was seen as a way to not only take care of the environment but also ensuring that the ecosystem in turn takes care of human basic needs, and participants thus resolved to explore solutions that cover both the climate and biodiversity crises. A Draft Decision published from COP 26 emphasized “the critical importance of nature-based solutions and ecosystem-based approaches, including protecting and restoring forests, to reducing emissions, enhancing removals and protecting biodiversity.”
The new opportunities that ecosystem services approaches provide for biodiversity conservation include: the development of broader constituencies for conservation and expanded possibilities to influence decision-making; opportunities to add or create new value to protected areas; and the opportunities to manage ecosystems sustainably outside of protected areas. The main concern, however, is that despite the increasing adoption of ecosystem services as a framework and suite of tools, the conservation community is still reluctant in application and skeptical about the efficacy of these approaches for conserving all of the components of biodiversity that they it is charged with protecting.
Conclusion
At their core, ecosystem services approach is prioritizing those processes that contribute to human wellbeing; very different from a biodiversity conservation approach, which is concerned with identifying conservation management actions to promote the persistence of all biodiversity, including species or ecosystems that do not have an identified value for humans. Thus, it is suggested that when utilising ecosystem services approaches for conservation, planners and managers must be realistic and recognise that these approaches are not all-encompassing and there are going to be gap species, ecosystems, and ecological processes whose conservation will require tools tailored to address those issues. The concept of sustainable development seeks to strike a balance between using ecosystem services to improve human lives and the need to ensure that the environment can comfortably replenish itself, that is, a balance between the ecocentric approaches to conservation against the anthropocentric approaches.
*This article is an extract from the Article: “Approaches to Biodiversity Conservation: Embracing Global Resource Conservation Best Practices,” (2021) Journal of Conflict Management and Sustainable Development Volume 7(4), p. 29 by Dr. Kariuki Muigua, PhD, Kenya’s ADR Practitioner of the Year 2021 (Nairobi Legal Awards), ADR Publisher of the Year 2021 and ADR Lifetime Achievement Award 2021 (CIArb Kenya). Dr. Kariuki Muigua is a foremost Environmental Law and Natural Resources Lawyer and Scholar, Sustainable Development Advocate and Conflict Management Expert in Kenya. Dr. Kariuki Muigua is a Senior Lecturer of Environmental Law and Dispute resolution at the University of Nairobi School of Law and The Center for Advanced Studies in Environmental Law and Policy (CASELAP). He has published numerous books and articles on Environmental Law, Environmental Justice Conflict Management, Alternative Dispute Resolution and Sustainable Development. Dr. Muigua is also a Chartered Arbitrator, an Accredited Mediator, the Africa Trustee of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and the Managing Partner of Kariuki Muigua & Co. Advocates. Dr. Muigua is recognized among the top 5 leading lawyers and dispute resolution experts in Kenya by the Chambers Global Guide 2022.
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