Tailoring the Ecosystem Services Approach to Landscape Level Management (TESL), 2018

This project applied a combination of ecological, economic and social data to classify ecological services (ES) and values in an interdisciplinary framework. The project aimed to: a) contribute with new information about ecosystem services in an integrated framework with particular focus on cultural services, b) combine existing and new data towards refining frameworks for hybrid monetary and non-monetary valuation of ES, and c) link ES valuation to scenario development. Lofoten - Vesterålen region was used as a case study area. Here we had access to a number of data sets on different types of tourism, cultural landscapes and heritage, agriculture, fisheries, coastal- and terrestrial ecology (seabirds, the marine ecosystem, geese, reindeer herding). There is considerable debate over preferred futures, and with options for different types of economic development, the ecological, social, economic and cultural ramifications can vary greatly, and subsequently future ecosystem services. The project: 1) Mapped ecosystem services by inventorying, re-analyzing and synthesizing existing data on ecological and human dimensions of the environment and classified key components and functions of the ecosystem and their contribution to the generation of different categories of ecosystem services, 2) Studied how stakeholders value changes in ecosystem service flows compared to a 'business as usual scenario', and evaluated how they prioritize trade-offs and benefits associated with different development paths , and 3) Examined how of the outputs of an ecosystem services classification of natural resources use can be spatially integrated into land use management and used to inform policy at multiple administrative scales.