Below you find a list of all 36 candidates for the ESP Steering Committee. Further down on this page you can also read a short introduction of each candidate. Please give your votes to three different candidates by ranking them from 1 to 3 (one for your most preferred candidate, 2 for your second most preferred candidate and 3 to your third most preferred candidate). You can vote using the voting form you received by email. If you are a paying ESP member and you did not receive the voting form, please contact [email protected] to request the form.
1. Alexander van Oudenhoven 2. Ana Turetta 3. Benjamin Burkhard 4. Carla Washbourne 5. Christian Albert 6. Christine Fuerst 7. Davide Geneletti 8. Edmundo Barrios 9. Evangelia Drakou 10. Fernando Santos-Martin 11. Florence Bernard 12. Hilly Ann Roa Quiaoit |
13. Inge Liekens 14. Jeroen Arends 15. Joachim Spangenberg 16. João Garcia Rodrigues 17. Johannes Foerster 18. Johannes Hermes 19. Johannes Langemeyer 20. Klara Winkler 21. Kremena Burkhard 22. Louise Willemen 23. Luis Inostroza 24. Luke Brander |
25. Marianne Thomsen 26. Matthias Schroeter 27. Moha Haddouch 28. Neville Crossman 29. Salma Talhouk 30. Sander Jacobs 31. Sebastian Villasante 32. Simone Quatrini 33. Stoyan Nedkov 34. Sylvie Campagne 35. Thomas Koellner 36. Zuzana Veronika Harmackova |
Candidate short introductions:
1. Alexander van Oudenhoven
“I am an environmental scientist working on the interface between ecosystems and people. The focus of my work lies in identifying and quantifying indicators for ecosystem services and multiple values in relation to environmental management, ecological engineering and decision making. Within the ESP I am co-leading Thematic Working Group 3, which focuses on Indicators. The working group was “revived” in 2015, and brought back into action. In 2015 I also became Lead Author of the Europe and Central Asia regional assessment, and member of working groups on social-ecological indicators and on values.
This year, I joined forces with Berta Martin-Lopez as Co-Editors in Chief of the renamed journal Ecosystems and People (former: IJBESM). We broadened the scope and updated the Editorial Board. In less than half a year, we turned the gender balance in the Editorial Board from over 70:30 (you can guess which was 70) to around 50:50. Also, the composition of the board and the journal’s scope better reflect the current situation that research into human-nature relationships is currently in. I mention this because I want to achieve something similar with the ESP, both overall and in the “higher region” of its governance structure.
During this year’s European ESP conference in San Sebastian, I noticed how many young researchers were present. In addition, not many identified themselves as “typical ecosystem services researchers”. To me, this was encouraging to see, and it also made a lot of sense. I would like the ESP to become an organisation that welcomes all scientific disciplines, including social sciences and humanities, one that doesn’t just focus on ecosystem services, and that presents itself as inclusive and diverse to potential new members. This involves becoming less formal and top-down in its appearance, reconsidering the amount and role of working groups, lowering the threshold to become an ESP member while increasing the benefits of membership, lowering the prices of ESP conferences and, finally, embracing the voices of (young) truly interdisciplinary scientists from all over the world.”
2. Ana Turetta
“Since 2012 I attend all the ESP meetings and, in 2014, we organized the Brazilian ESP Network. Since this year, I tried to keep the Brazilian professionals motivated to join ESP and it is visible that the Brazilian participation in ESP conferences is increasing. In last October we organized the ESP LAC in Brazil (Campinas) and it was so grateful to see the Brazilian group presenting many studies, interacting with each other and moving on. After Martine’s talk about the Steering Committee many members encouraged me to take part the Committee. Besides that, my professional skills are being strengthened, which is reflected in the quality of my technical-scientific publications.”
3. Benjamin Burkhard
“I very much like the idea of ecosystem services and to apply them for a better world. That’s why I have been active in ESP since the beginning, organising the 1st and 2nd ESP Conferences in Salzau/Kiel and I am now organising the 10th ESP World Conference 2019 in Hannover. It is nice to interact with ESP people, therefore I am member of the ESP Executive Committee, chair the ESP membership engagement commission and lead Thematic Working Group 4 on Mapping Ecosystem Services. We can make it if we try!”
4. Carla Washbourne
“ESP conferences, working group activities and connections made through these have been key in developing and supporting my work in environmental policy. I would like to be part of the advisory structure that keeps ESP functioning and improving so that others can enjoy and benefit from this great community!
I am an early-career professional working as a Lecturer at University College London, UK and Research Associate at the Gauteng City-Region Observatory, South Africa. I am an active part of the Young Ecosystem Services Specialists (YESS) group, part of the broader ESP network.
I have presented at ESP global and local meetings and organised sessions in association with my YESS colleagues for the 9th World Conference of ESP in 2017 in Shenzhen and ESP EU 2018 in San Sebastian. I am always encouraged by the support and visibility for young researchers and will be vocal in ensuring that this remains part of ESP’s approach.”
5. Christian Albert
“Dear colleagues and friends, I ask for your votes in the election for ESP’s Steering Committee, so that we can take the next steps together to keep ESP moving forward. I am highly motivated to run with the intention to help making use of the unique cooperation opportunities of the science, policy and practice communities within ESP in order to foster the uptake of ecosystem service knowledge in decision-making. As chair of the ESP TWG 14, I could bring to the Steering Committee particular insights regarding the interface between research and application of ecosystem services in landscape planning, ecosystem management, and implementation.
My mission would be to help maintaining and enhancing the service of ESP to its members and the ecosystem services community in general. In particular, I am eager to support the consideration of the diversity of perspectives from different backgrounds, sectors, disciplines, career stages, and knowledges types in ecosystem services research and practice. Beyond my activities in ESP, I engage in research and teaching as a Junior Professor for Landscape Planning and Ecosystem Services and head of the interdisciplinary research group PlanSmart at Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany. Benjamin Burkhard and I are already looking forward to welcoming all of you in Hannover at next year’s ESP World Conference to celebrate 10 years of ESP and jointly explore pathways for the conservation and sustainable use of ecosystem services in the future. I would very much appreciate your votes and would do my best to serve the entire ESP community.”
6. Christine Fuerst
“I graduated in 1998 as forest engineer at Ludwig-Maximilian University Munich and then developed my research on understanding ecosystems and their services in landscape and regional contexts over a PhD in soil sciences at TU Dresden and the habilitation at University of Bonn. Currently, I am heading the Dept. for Sustainable Landscape Development at Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg with the mission and vision to teach our students from scratch how to implement the concept of ecosystem services in spatial planning, decision making and policy consultation.
My huge motivation to contribute further to ESP in the steering committee is that I wish to bring in approaches how to make the concept more known and relevant in planning and decision making practice. My pathways are to incorporate it actively in higher education, but also through training of practitioniers and through facultative committments and bottom-up processes led by actors from practice in the daily assessment processes of decision alternatives and conclusions which alternative is the most eligible one.
ESP is a fast growing and inspiring community, which can greatly help to advance research on and implementation of ecosystem services as a key sustainability concept. I would be eager to contribute to its further advances and progress through a bit of experiences and ideas how to support its further development.”
7. Davide Geneletti
“I’m an Associate Professor at the University of Trento. In my research I focus on the inclusion of ecosystem services assessment in urban and spatial planning, as well as in the impact assessment of policies, plans and projects. I’m interested in contributing to the Steering Committee, particularly by promoting ways in which ESP can better engage real-life decision-makers across sectors and regions.”
8. Edmundo Barrios
“I am a soil ecologist with more than 25 years of tropical agricultural systems research experience in Latin America, Africa and Asia, including 20 years with the CGIAR (CIAT-Colombia and ICRAF-Kenya), and now based at the Agriculture Department of FAO (Italy). I am keen to contribute to the goals of ESP to build a strong network of individuals and organizations that encourage a diversity of approaches and practices to improve livelihoods through the enhanced and sustained provision of ecosystem services. Agricultural sustainability demands novel integrative approaches that acknowledge the intimate and dynamic human-environment linkages in order to address the multiple dimensions and scales of global problems like land degradation, biodiversity loss or climate change.
My interdisciplinary skills have been developed over years of field experience in close interaction with scientists of different disciplines, local communities, government and other relevant institutions, and further advanced through the Environmental Leadership Program at UC Berkeley, a research fellowship with the Sustainability Science Program at Harvard University, and more recently at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN.”
9. Evangelia Drakou
“I am an Assistant Professor working in ES assessment and mapping with a focus on marine systems. I chair the marine ESP WG, the Greek National Network, and I am part of several working groups including the Mapping, ES flows and Indicators for many years now. Given my activity in this community I would happily become a member of the Steering committee with the objective to contribute ideas and launch new initiatives. One key element I would focus on, would be establishing connections with other scientific bodies and achieve partnerships with them.”
10. Fernando Santos-Martin
I would like to bring more innovative ideas into the Ecosystem Services Scientific Agenda
11. Florence Bernard
“I am an agronomist and environmentalist by training with 13 years of experience. Being Programme Associate then Associate Scientist at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) since 2010, I conduct research to address climate change while at the same time improving livelihoods in the agriculture-forest landscape of the humid tropics. I have managed and participated in several multi-country and multi-stakeholder development and research projects focusing on the REDD+ agenda and integrated landscape management. My current research focuses on: 1) Enabling policy environments for REDD+ and sustainable landscapes; 2) incentives and strategies to take up sustainable land use practices such as agroforestry and climate smart agriculture; 3) Engaging and scaling-up private sector involvement in REDD+ and landscapes; 4) Quantification and valuation of ecosystem services & design of PES. I have 5 previous years of international experience as environmental consultant on various development projects funded by multi and bilateral donors in the fields of environmental and water planning, integrated natural resource management, evaluation and monitoring of programmes and projects, environmental economics, environmental impact assessment and international cooperation. I have been involved in the ESP partnership since its beginning and am a co-leader of the Tropical Forest Biome group. I am pleased to run for the ESP steering committee as I feel it is a great opportunity to take my engagement at another level and work/exchange on a more regular basis with other members of the steering committee. I expect to provide support, guidance and oversight of progress of the operation and governance of the ESP and to contribute to an effective ESP partnership and enhance its current and future successes and impacts.”
12. Hilly Ann Roa Quiaoit
“I have just started working on ecological services (ES) here in the Philippines. This is a new field for us and only a few are engaged in our country. Being a member of the ESP Steering Committee will help me give a big boost to this nascent field in the Philippines. The value added of being in the same ESP body with global ES experts will provide the support, network and guidance in strengthening and expanding the ES work in our area.”
13. Inge Liekens
“I am an environmental economist working for 15 years now on ecosystem services mapping and valuation. I am working a lot on translating academic research on biophysical models towards information policy makers can relate to. I am also working on different preferences and values people have for nature areas. I develop together with our ICT people user friendly tools to calculate the impact of implementing green on different topics such as delivery of ecosystem services, climate change… It was quit a surprise to be nominated, but I am honoured. Because I work very closely with policy makers and companies, I believe I can bring ESP further on its goal to be very transdisciplinary and bring more non-academics to the conferences.”
14. Jeroen Arends
“I am one of the leads of the Regional Chapter South East Europe. I have set up and am part of several National Networks in the region. These networks are small for the most part but some of them are growing and starting to take a prominent role in ES research in the region. My activities regarding ES and ESP in the region concern expanding the national networks, promote both ES and the ESP during workshops and conferences, and improve regional cooperation regarding ES research, policy and practice. Regarding the letter, we have established cooperation on a project proposal regarding ES capacity building and knowledge transfer involving ESP partners in 11 countries, both in South Eastern Europe as well as in Western Europe. We are still waiting on the outcome of this application but the groundwork for further cooperation has been laid by this. Some of us are now also preparing an application for an H2020 project and also cross border cooperation is being explored.
My motivation for running for the ESP Steering Committee is that regarding Biodiversity and ES in SEE much work still needs to be done. SEE is the area with the highest biodiversity in Europe and an important area for trans-migratory species, interconnecting various other regions to ours. However, biodiversity is under threat by a wide variety of threats due to human activity. Being a poor region, nature conservation is not high on the political agenda and ES is a concept that is still not well understood and applied in the region. I hope by being part of the SC I can further improve ES in research, policy and application in the region thereby enabling a better sustainable and equitable development there. I also aim to further strengthen cooperation between our region and ESP partners in other regions, such as in Western Europe and MENA, in terms of improving collaboration on projects as well as knowledge transfer, capacity building, exchange of students, etc.”
15. Joachim Spangenberg
“With an academic background in biology, ecology and economics I was very interested in ecosystem services (ESS) from the outset and participated in ESP from the first meetings in Salzau, Germany. While located in Germany, my research on biodiversity and ESS took place in the Philippines and Vietnam, with excursions into Indonesia and China, plus an attempt of methodology transfer from Southeast Asia to Sweden. Other projects focussed on Central Asia, Southern and Western Africa.
As a member of the past Steering Committee I participated in the StC meetings and in the joint StC/board working groups, was a peer reviewer and organised workshops and tracks at the International and European Conferences, built bridges to other academic organisations like the International Sustainable Development Research Society and to administrations like the German Nature Protection Agency (the president gave a keynote in the South Africa ESP).
As with the pohasing out of most projects my time budget is increasing, I would like to invest that extra time in ESP, including building bridges in places where I have contacts, such as the European Environment Agency and global NGOs like Friends of the Earth International. I would also continue my work on the limitations of monetary valuation and the exploration of multidimensional value measuring.”
16. João Garcia Rodrigues
“I am an early-career researcher at Campus Do Mar, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Spain, where I am currently doing my PhD studies in Marine Sciences. My research focuses on the relationship between human well-being and the marine environment, and on equity issues and access of local populations to marine ecosystem services. Currently, I am a member of several working groups on marine ecosystem services in ICES, ESP and ECOMAR.
I was a member of the Young Ecosystem Services Specialists (YESS) Executive Team between 2014 and 2017. During that period, we have actively contributed to create a supportive environment for early-career researchers where we could exchange research ideas, build capacity, and help each other in the first steps of our research careers. We have organised conference sessions designed for early-careers researchers, set up regular meetings to discuss interesting papers, and promoted relevant job opportunities for YESS members. These activities were expanded and improved by the current Executive Team.
Early-career researchers are not only a considerable part of the current ESP community, but they are also the future of the community. Currently, there is only one YESS member in the Steering Committee. We need more. We want to be heard and shape the future of the ESP. We will help building a more diverse community working on the science, policy and practice of ecosystem services by advising the Executive Committee on the needs of early-career researchers around the globe. That is the reason I am running for the ESP Steering Committee: to raise the voice of early-career researchers in ESP. We need a more inclusive community.”
17. Johannes Foerster
“The Ecosystem Service Partnership (ESP) is a rich platform of highly motivated young and senior experts with knowledge, data, tools and resources that are of great relevance for informing policies and decision making on nature-based solutions. It is my goal to promote the engagement of ESP in relevant science-policy processes through building synergies with like-minded networks in particular related to ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For example, FEBA – Friends of Ecosystem-based Adaptation – is a network active at the science-policy interphase and building synergies with ESP could help strengthening the uptake of nature-based solutions in policies and decision making.[showhide type=”text10 more_text=Read_more less_text=Hide] As the latest science shows, climate change and the loss of biodiversity are approaching critical thresholds in the coming decade and crossing these thresholds could have major negative consequences for humanity. Hence building resilience of ecosystems and society at local, national and global scale is urgent. I am convinced that ESP can play an important role in developing and implementing nature-based solutions and as member of the Steering Committee I would be happy to promote ESP’s engagement in related science-policy processes.”
18. Johannes Hermes
“I am a research assistant and lecturer at the Institute of Environmental Planning, Leibniz University Hannover, currently working on my PhD thesis on the national scale assessment and mapping of cultural ecosystem services in Germany. Next to that I am teaching GIS as well as theory and methods of landscape planning.
I happily accept the nomination to run for ESP Steering Committee. I hope I can help continuing the successful work the partnership is doing, and contribute to shaping its future. I think the exchange and collaboration between researchers, policy makers and practitioners worldwide is of utmost importance for conserving nature and working towards a more sustainable development of our society and economy. Institutions like the ESP play a major role in pursuing this goal.”
19. Johannes Langemeyer
“Trained as a geogrpaher at Humboldt University Berlin, I received my PhD from the Stockholm University and the Autonomous University of Bareclona, where I am currently working as a post-doc researcher. I am specialized in urban ecosystem service research and study the social-ecological complexity of urban green infrastructure, nature-based solutions, people’s behaviour, perceptions, benefits and wellbeing in relation to urban planning. My work puts strong emphasis on science-community-policy integration and is generally driven by co-designed research questions.
My mission within the ESP is:
(a) to further establish ecosystem service assessments for the evaluation of Nature-based and Green Infrastructure based urban and metropolitan transitions;
(b) to establish a strong conceptual and methodological foundation of equity and justice in ecosystem service research and practice.”
20. Klara Winkler
“I am a postdoctoral fellow in the Bennett lab at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Since my first steps in research, my research has always been connected with the ecosystem services concept and I had the luck to apply it in different contexts including some of the big EU H2020 projects (OPERAs, OpenNESS). Beside my joy doing research, I highly value outreach activities and the support of early career researchers. In 2016, I initiated a blog on the homepage of the German ESP-DE section which nowadays has almost 70 blog posts in accessible German language in order to promote research on ecosystem services to a wider (non-scientific community). In 2017/8, I was part of the Executive Team of YESS (Young Ecosystem Services Specialist). In this time, we succeeded in re-activating the network, growing the numbers of members over 100%, offering different online and offline activities for the members and like this create a vivid network or early career researchers in ecosystem services research. I hope to being able further pursue these two interests as member of the ESP Steering Committee in the future. I would like to work on further strengthening partnerships between practitioners, decision-makers and researcher, but also in the regional networks like here in Canada/ North America where ESP is less presented. Still being an active YESS member, I would love to contribute to intensifying links between YESS and ESP and make the voice of early career researchers more heard within ESP.”
21. Kremena Burkhard
“I have been involved in the ESP community and joining its annual world and regional conferences since the first year of my PhD and the community has always provided amazing support, inspiration, source of knowledge and guidelines for my professional development. I strongly believe that the ESP has a very high value for science and practice. Therefore, I would like to have the opportunity to support the network in its efforts to build a healthy and welcoming environment for young scientists from different backgrounds (thematically and regionally) and contribute to its future development as a gender balanced, global community. Some of my main targets are to strengthen the cooperation and involvement of the YESS community and the South East European chapter. I am also presently co-leading the working groups of Modeling ES and ES and Water Management and I intend to continue my active involvement in the WGs through organization of conference sessions, common publication, networking, etc.
I am presently a postdoc researcher at the Institute for Environmental Planning, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany. I have a PhD degree in Physical Geography and Landscape Science from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, which included continuous research stays at the University of Arizona, USA, and Kiel University, Germany. My background is in Geodesy with a Dipl. Eng. degree from the University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy, Bulgaria. My main research focus until now is in the field of water related ecosystem services and their integrated modeling. I am also interested in the application of ES modeling as decision-making support tool, ES trade-off analysis, environmental planning and ecosystem and water accounting.”
22. Louise Willemen
“ESP is all about partnership. People interacting, teaming-up, learning; all exactly what our multi-disciplinary multi-stakeholder, multi-scale multi-cool profession needs. I currently contribute in different ways to ESP (WG leads, conference organization, membership engagement) and have been a Steering Committee member for the last 4 year (of which 2 as co-chair). I plan to stay active in ESP governance in the next 4 year, to cherish all things that made ESP a success, and to adapt and change where needed to keep ESP relevant, visible and welcoming.
Oh, and in my daily life I am an assistant professor, figuring out how to map ES change due to restoration and other sustainable land management decisions, a IPBES CLA, contribute to the OneEcosystem journal as topic editor, and try make our university campus more ES-friendly.”
23. Luis Inostroza
“To me, ecosystem services are central towards a sustainable future, by including the value of nature in society. That is what we promote and encourage at the Ecosystem Services editorial board. It is the challenge I am pursuing in my daily research work and teaching on Urban Ecosystem Services planning and assessment at the Ruhr University Bochum. I am a passionate scientist with the energy to help in strengthening the ESP not only in Latin America, where I come from, but also in Germany where I work and central Europe, where I am very active. Although I consider myself a critical thinker (people who know me could testify that), I do profess a profound conviction in the tremendous contribution of the ES science towards sustainable development. I am convinced that enhancing the ESP activities, promoting better practice and broadening the engagement of society at large, including practitioners and civil society can pave the way for a world with less social and ecological inequality. I firmly believe that I can contribute to that aim by actively participating in the ESP Steering Committee. I see myself as a bridge and ambassador between the distant communities where I work and live.”
24. Luke Brander
“I see ESP as a very important hub for knowledge exchange and interdisciplinary collaboration, which is much needed in order to bring scientific research to bear on the environmental problems we face. I would like to continue contributing to ESP’s development and impact as a member of the ESP Steering Committee. As an environmental economist based in Hong Kong, I bring to the table a broad experience of applied ecosystem services research in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.”
25. Marianne Thomsen
“Motivation is to underpin the need for designing circular resource flows that preserves and enhances ecosystem services.
Strengthen science based evidence and tools to design local resource management systems as the key to restorative economy contributes to climate change mitigation and environmental restoration (moving inside the planetary boundaries thereby preserving/restoring ES).
Contribute to the partnership development of a framework underpinning the need for ecosystem service preservation as the only pathways of delivering on the SGDs, translated in the concept of the Doughnut economy as means of moving inside the safe operating space of the planetary boundaries.
A strong sustainable development concept, in which resource management and technology systems designed to restore and preserve natural ecosystem services.
As coordinator of SWG10, I plan to expand SWG10 to strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global ESP for sustainable development (SDG17).”
26. Matthias Schroeter
“I am an environmental scientist and Postdoc at UFZ – Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Leipzig (Germany). My work focuses on spatial ecosystem service assessments, interregional flows and coproduction. I am a lead author of the IPBES regional assessment for Europe and Central Asia, where I was responsible for cultural services, equity of ecosystem service use and the region’s dependence on ecosystem services from elsewhere.
I have visited my first ESP conference in 2011, when I was a PhD student at Wageningen University (the Netherlands), where ESP is based. Since then I have been increasingly involved in ESP conferences and working groups. I am co-leading the revived working group on indicators (TWG 3) and the working group on global flows of ecosystem services (TWG 11). In this function I have co-organised several sessions during the conferences in San Jose (2014), Antwerp (2016) and San Sebastian (2018) with many fellow ESPers. In 2015 I was a founding member of the ESP network in Germany.
I would like to actively shape ESP as a leading network for both ecosystem service science and exchange with decision makers. I would like to strengthen the links of ESP to IPBES for the sake of mutual learning from past experiences. An important motivation is also to ensure that the ESP community remains open for approaches of other fields, so that we can prevent to become self-referential. Another aim is sustainable conferencing, for which first steps fortunately have been taken. We should consider peer reviewed publication of ESP policy briefs to improve visibility of ESP beyond conferences and to more strongly link to policy. Communication within working groups needs to be open, transparent and easy, which could be improved through mailing lists.”
27. Moha Haddouch
“Being involved in a nature based solution project adopting an ecosystem services approach to tackle emerging social and environmental challenges in Morocco with support from UNDP and the GEF, my interest to liaise with the leading communities of scientists and developpers in the MENA region working on ES is growing over the last years. For me, the ESP is an appropriate network for exchanging insights and sealing partneships in such colloborative ways that will help develop scientific tools to support sustainable decision making.”
28. Neville Crossman
“I have a long history (since 2010) of very active involvement in ESP, both as an Executive Committee member (Treasurer) and as co-lead of the Mapping Working Group and the Freshwater Biome Group. Professionally I’ve a 10 year research career in ecosystem services, and I now am employed by the Australian Government’s Murray-Darling Basin Authority as Director of Social and Economic Analysis where I am implementing a program on ecosystem service valuation from the restoration of the Murray-Darling River system in Australia. I wish to remain active in ESP and so I am nominating for a position on the Steering Committee.”
29. Salma Talhouk
“I am interested in expanding CES in general and more specifically in the ME region.”
30. Sander Jacobs
“After 4.5 years of co-chairing the ESP steering committee, I would love to continue the job. Not necessarily as (co)chair, but I certainly want to continue to keep growing ESP, to make it even more large, diverse and professional.
ESP has come a long way in these 5 years. Seen from outside, I think we can be more proud and assertive to increase our impact. Seen from inside, there are always things to improve, and I am willing (and i hope able) to make a good contribution, especially concerning diversity, equity, and the normative vision of the partnership.”
31. Sebastian Villasante
“Dr. Sebastian Villasante (Economist) is Professor of Economics at USC and Natural Capital Fellow at Stanford University (USA). My research focuses on assessing ecological and economic contribution of marine ecosystem services; spatial distribution of social and economic benefits of ecosystem services; governance of the oceans; climate change and marine ecosystem services. He combines quantitative and qualitative methods and training in fisheries science, governance and economics to understand linkages between ecological and socioeconomic components of marine systems at multiple scales.
I published 130 papers in scientific journals. I was awarded 4 National and International Prizes (American Fisheries Society, 2008; INESMA, 2009; Japanese International Research Society Yamamoto, 2010; and USC, 2011). Since early 2014, I chair the ICES Working Group on Resilience and Marine Ecosystem Services, and the Coordinator of the ESP on Working Group Economic valuation of ecosystem services. I was visiting scientist at University of Tromso¸, Stanford University, Poverty Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT-USA), School of Aquatic and Fisheries Sciences of the University of Washington (USA), Stockholm Resilience Centre (Sweden), The Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics (Sweden) and University of British Columbia (Canada). I would be interested to join the ESP Steering Committee to bring my economic and social background and experience working with a wide range of coastal communities, indigenous people and multidimensional valuation of ecosystem services. I could also contribute to provide insights and ideas about the development of the ESP in connection with other international and national networks.”
32. Simone Quatrini
“I am a Natural Resource Policy scientist at ETH Zurich. I’m also member of the Research Priority Programme on Global Change and Biodiversity of the University of Zurich, and of WEF’s Transformative Leaders Network. I’ve been actively involved in the ESP since 2008 and served in its Executive Committee since 2014. I stand ready to continue to devote resources and energy towards ESP consolidation and growth in the coming years. My foreseen contribution via the Steering Committee would be focused on resource mobilization, strategic partnerships and integration of ES knowledge and efforts towards the development of innovative and transformative solutions, such as an international standard for ES management.”
33. Stoyan Nedkov
“I am a member of ESP since its foundation and a member of the current SC. I am also a co-chair of South-East Europe chapter and co-chair of modeling thematic group. My professional carrier in the last 10 years is closely related to ESP through several activities such as organization of conferences, special issues in ESP related journals (Ecosystem Services and One Ecosystem), participation in project initiated within ESP (ESMERALDA), organization of national and regional chapter. Since last year I am involved in the development of the ESP Science and Communication platform. Together with my colleagues form South-East Europe chapter we prepared and submitted a project to develop the regional network. I am motivated to continue with these activities and to contribute for further development of the ESP as a worldwide network.”
34. Sylvie Campagne
“I would like to become a member for the Ecosystem Services Partnership Steering Committee in order to contribute to the mission and objectives of ESP. As a young ES scientist, I’m highly motivated to help shape the future of the Partnership by bringing a young and dynamic vision. I am interested in learning from the experiences of others and in discussing and debating for the development of ESP and its activities. Since 2011, I’m involved in local and national NGO in France, I would like now to contribute to the ESP.”
35. Thomas Koellner
“As a professor for ecological services at the University of Bayreuth in Germany I would like to contribute to the success of the ES Partnership.”
36. Zuzana Veronika Harmackova
“Hello everyone! I am a current postdoctoral researcher at Stockholm Resilience Centre and CzechGlobe, focusing on ecosystem services modelling, participatory scenario planning and research on social-ecological resilience. In addition to my research work, I have been actively involved in the science-policy interface, primarily through contributing to the IPBES Regional Assessment on Europe and Central Asia and the current IPBES Values Assessment. As an early-career researcher, I have been a proud and grateful member of YESS – the network of Young Ecosystem Services Specialists, and the IPBES Fellowship Programme. I have been a part of ESP since 2012 and deeply value its role in shaping and advancing ecosystem-service research and practice through nurturing connections between multiple ecosystem-service related communities. Within the ESP Steering Committee, I would like to help deepen connections between the ESP, IPBES and resilience communities, as well as to promote early-career, transdisciplinary perspectives in the ESP agenda.”