While human well-being depends upon the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and ecosystem services, global changes and unsustainable human activities increasingly threaten the world’s capacity to deliver those services over the long term.
In Europe and beyond, a solution to such challenges can be found by merging landscape planning with ecosystem services concepts. Landscape planning has strengths in recognition of public benefits and implementation mechanisms, while the ecosystem services approach makes the connection between the status of natural assets and human well-being more explicit. It can also provide an economic perspective, focused on individual preferences and benefits, which helps validate the acceptability of environmental planning goals. Thus linking landscape planning and ecosystem services provides a two-way benefit, creating a usable science to meet the needs of local and regional decision making. [Read more…] about New handbook published: Landscape Planning with Ecosystem Services
