NESP Digest, April 2020

NESP Digest: April 2020

We hope that you and yours are staying safe and healthy during the current pandemic, and we send our thanks to those working on the front lines in health care and other essential services. While we are seeing rapid changes to our routines, work schedules, and schooling the prevalence of ecosystem services is no less apparent during this time. We’re sure that all of us are feeling thankful for the limited greenspaces we currently have access to, and have never been more aware of their positive influence on our mental state . Similarly, the way that nature mediates human disease risk is also a topic at the forefront of our minds. We will continue to bring you a quarterly update on all things ecosystem services, and remain committed to keeping the NESP community up and running.

If you have items that you’d like to include in the next edition of the NESP Digest, please send them to us .

NESP UPDATES

New Product:

NESP has a new series: Mapping Ecosystem Services for the Southeast United States. Each brief from the series details methods and data used to map priority areas for conservation or restoration of a particular ecosystem service in the southeast. A brief on Conservation Priorities for Open Space Recreation Access can now be found on our website. (Mapping results can be found on ScienceBase .)

New Paper:

Warnell, K.J.D. et al. 2020. Testing Ecosystem Accounting in the United States: A Case Study for the Southeast . Ecosystem Services .

NESP Webinar: Piloting Ecosystem Accounts for the Southeastern U.S.

Thursday May 21, 2 – 3p ET

Hear from Ken Bagstad (USGS), Katie Warnell (Duke University), Charles Rhodes (TBD Economics), and Marc Russell (US EPA) about a new publication that details the first effort to develop Ecosystem Accounts for the U.S. at a broad scale. The team will describe the potential for U.S. ecosystem accounting and explain their pilot accounts for a 10-state region in the Southeast. The pilot accounts address air quality, water quality, biodiversity, carbon storage, recreation, and pollination for selected years from 2001 to 2015. Authors will explain how results can contribute to policy and decision making and describe a case study from Atlanta to show how ecosystem accounts can help give a more complete picture of a local area’s environmental-economic trends. Knowledge gaps that limit the inclusion of certain ecosystem services in the accounts and suggestions for future research that can close these gaps will also be discussed. Register here .

IN THE NEWS

Ecopsychology: How Immersion in Nature Benefits Your Health . Yale Environment 360 , January 9.

Natural Capital Tool Launched to Help Protect the Environment . Infrastructure Intelligence , January 22.

The Natural Capital Coalition and the Social & Human Capital Coalition Unite . Capitals Coalition , January 23.

Global Economic Growth Will Take Big Hit Due to Loss of Nature . The Guardian , February 12.

The Hidden Risks Nature Loss Poses for Businesses . World Economic Forum , March 4.

The Effort to Fight Emerging Infectious Diseases Must Be Holistic . The Hill , March 9.

Ecosystem Services Are Not Constrained by Borders . AAAS EurekAlert , March 30.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Alae-Carew et al. 2020. The Impact of Environmental Changes on the Yield and Nutritional Quality of Fruits, Nuts and Seeds: A Systematic Review . Environmental Research Letters .

Hein et al. 2020. Progress in Natural Capital Accounting for Ecosystems . Science .

Martin, S., R. Bartlett, and M. Kim. 2020. Enhancing NDCs Through Nature-Based Solutions . WWF.

Ruhl, J.B. and J. Salzman. 2020. Ecosystem Services and Federal Public Lands: A Quiet Revolution in Natural Resources Management . University of Colorado Law Review .

Watson et al. 2020. Conserving Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity: Measuring the Tradeoffs Involved in Splitting Conservation Budgets . Ecosystem Services .

Weiskopf et al. 2020. Climate Change Effects on Biodiversity, Ecosystems, and Ecosystem Services, and Natural Resource Management in the United States . Science of the Total Environment .

UPCOMING MEETINGS AND EVENTS

June 22 – 26. Conservation Finance Boot Camp . New Haven, Connecticut.

August 2 – 6. National Conference on Ecosystem Restoration . Portland, Oregon. (Rescheduled for 2021.)

September 21 – 25. Ecosystem Services Partnership European Regional Conference . Tartu, Estonia. (Tentatively moving forward as planned.)

December 14 – 17. A Community on Ecosystem Services . Bonita Springs, Florida. (Abstracts due June 22.)

GRANTS AND JOB OPPORTUNITIES

Job Opportunities:

Director of Market Development . American Forest Foundation, Washington, DC.

EnviroAtlas Data Support . U.S. EPA, Research Triangle Park, NC.

Critical Natural Capital Intern . Conservation International, Arlington, VA.

To subscribe to the NESP Digest, click here . To unsubscribe, click here .

NESP also maintains a listserv to help foster communication in the ecosystem services community. The address for this list is nesp-community@duke.edu . Please feel free to use this list to discuss ecosystem services issues or to exchange information about new papers, jobs, or grant opportunities.

NESP is an initiative of the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University.