Ecosystem services inclusive strategic environmental assessment

A consistent framework to address biodiversity, ecosystem services and their societal values is now established with the MEA (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment) and the TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity). These and other studies point to the urgency in considering actions that can revert the process of degradation of biodiversity values and its supporting ecosystems. Safeguarding livelihoods is a common objective in ecosystem approaches as well as in strategic environmental assessment (SEA) effort to promote sustainability. Human activities, as direct and indirect development drivers, are crucial targets for SEA to have a strategic contribution in influencing priorities, by showing strategic reasons for change. Rather than keeping only a control and mitigation role on the assessment of effects and impacts of development on the environment, SEA has the capacity to understand the decisional and development context and to drive development opportunities into pathways that are inclusive of environmental and sustainability priorities. The development opportunities provided by ecosystem services can be explored in SEA through strategic approaches to enhance the value of the benefits and avoid the negative impact of human actions on ecosystem services. SENSU, a research team at IST-Portugal, advocates the strategic-based and collaborative oriented approach in SEA based on Partidario (2007) SEA framework of critical decision factors (CDF). A methodology to allow the consideration of ecosystem services in SEA is being developed and tested. This paper will share research advances on how ecosystem services can be incorporated into SEA as a fundamental component of strategic assessment in support of decision-making.

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► SEA and ecosystem services are both strategic and relevant to each other.
► Strategic approaches in SEA are more flexibility to deal with complex problems.
► Safeguarding livelihoods is a major driver in SEA to promote sustainability.
► Stakeholders in Alcochete reveal a positive perception on ES inclusive SEA.