stockholm september 16-17, 2009 - european...

SW E DI S H E NVI RO N M E NT A L P R O TE C TI ON A GE N C Y N o t es f r o m t he Va lu e o f o u r M a r i n e E n v i r o nm e n t , S t oc k ho lm 1 6 -1 7 S ep t em b er

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Stockholm September 16-17, 2009

“Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that

can be counted counts.”

Albert Einstein


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Foreword Sweden arranged an international conference focusing on ways of integrating the value of marine ecosystem services into decision-making, so that policies are de-signed to achieve sustainable management of these ecosystems.

The conference The Value of Our Marine Environment was held under the aus-pices of the Swedish EU Presidency in Stockholm 16-17th September 2009.

Overfishing, major oil spills and eutrophication have caused the marine environ-ment to climb up the political agenda over the last ten years, both in the EU and in other international alliances. Over the past few years marine environment, the risk of climate change and globalisation have further added to the interest in marine issues.

Even though there are many uncertainties involved, one thing is clear. The collec-tive value of the ecosystem services of our seas is so great that we cannot afford to lose them. We must act now.

Maria Ågren

Director-General, Swedish Environmental Protection Agency

The presentations showed during the conference can be found at www.naturvardsverket.se/marinevalue


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Contents FOREWORD 2

CONCLUSIONS 4

DAY 1, SEPTEMBER 16 5 Welcome 5

Opening of the Conference 6

Definition, Status and Trends of marine ecosystem services 7

Marine ecosystem services – where do they come from, how are they related and what is affecting them? 8

Ecosystem services and actors in the world market 9

Environmental Decision-Making and Valuation 10

Valuing marine ecosystem services in practice 12

Policy challenges for marine resilience and shift of ecosystems 14

Deep-sea ecosystem goods and services: A challenge to socio-economics 15

Panel discussion with Karl-Göran Mäler, Anne-Sophie Crépin, Steve Polasky and Sybille van den Hove 17

DAY 1, SEPTEMBER 16 19 Sweden’s work on marine ecosystem services 19

EEA’s work on the marine environment 20

Management of marine ecosystem services in practice – experiences from the Great Barrier Reef 21

Fisheries Management in the Baltic Sea: applying best practice 23

Improved water quality in the Baltic Sea - from modelling nutrient loads to policy design for reduced eutrophication 24

Integrated and eco-system based management of the marine environment of the Barents Sea 26

Ecosystem services and the UK’s approach to the Marine Strategy Framework Directive 27

The Black Sea easy way to bring the values of marine ecosystems into decision-making 28

Full implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive – the key to unfolding the potential of the EU Maritime Policy 30

Panel discussion with Peter Gammeltoft, Violeta Velikova, Per W. Schive and Anne Christine Brusendorff 32


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Conclusions The conference concluded that human activities are indeed shaping the marine environments; often to our own disadvantage. The marine environment is nothing less than our life-support systems. The prosperity of human societies depends upon healthy ecosystems. The conference highlighted a number of challenges, but it also identified several ways forward. Challenges included the following:

• Awareness of the full value of our marine environment is generally low. • The role of nature in human well-being is often underestimated. • There is a spatial mismatch between ecosystems and policy boundaries • Management and governance are dominated by narrow approaches defined

by sectors. • Policies are often implemented top down and not adapted to local contexts. • Short term preferences dominate decision-making: Provisioning services

(e.g. fish) are prioritized over supporting ones (e.g. nutrient cycles). • Current approaches to governance and management are unable to deal with

the risk of regime shifts (flips) in ecosystems. • What is not monetary valued is often not accounted for. However, complex

social–ecological dynamics are hard to capture in economic models. Fur-thermore, some services, such as the option value of future pharmaceuti-cals, are impossible to value in monetary terms.

Ways forward identified and exemplified during the conference included: • Speeding up the transition of mental models of the world towards ones that

see humans as part of, and dependent upon nature. • Navigating towards desirable pathways, rather than trying to avoid change. • Adopting a systemic approach and enhancing multidisciplinary and mul-

tisectorial collaboration. E.g. climate and ecosystems should be dealt with simultaneously and the links between fisheries and the larger marine envi-ronment should be acknowledged.

• Ensuring broad participation and stakeholder involvement in governance and management.

• Promoting and allowing diversity in ecosystems and management strate-gies.

• Communicating the value of ecosystem services, including the cost of in-action. Visualizing beauty and consequences of unsustainable use.

• Developing strategies to make decisions based on limited knowledge • Taking precaution in the face of complexity and limited knowledge • Using adaptive management, learning from experiences.

Lastly, the conference stressed the need for political will, policy consistency, and policy coherence, both within and outside of the EU.


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Day 1, September 16 Welcome Maria Ågren, Director-General, Swedish Environmental Protection Agency The marine environment is one of the Swedish Natural Protection Agencies focal areas. Ecosystem services are our main focus at this conference.

• What do we mean by ecosystem services? • How do we use them? • How do our activities threaten them?

And most importantly - how can we find ways of integrating the value of marine ecosystem services into decision-making, so that policies are designed to achieve sustainable management of these ecosystems? Judging by the answers given in the survey that we made prior to the conference you feel that our greatest obstacle to do so is that we lack the means and knowl-edge. Considering that placing an economic value on marine ecosystem services is a new research field, this is not surprising. “What the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over…” We do things affecting the sea that would not be possible on land. At present seas are described as the world biggest dump and the world’s biggest bank. The marine systems give us lots of services that often are taken for granted. In many areas and ways these resources are overused. It is clear that we have knowledge gaps, but we know the value of our marine ser-vices is so great that we cannot afford to lose them. Is the only way forward to value them economically? I do not have the answer to that. This is a task that will require joint actions and well thought approaches. I hope these days will give you knowledge, as well as new contacts and inspiration. And when we say goodbye, we will be richer in many ways - on our way to take action!


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Opening of the Conference Elisabet Falemo, State Secretary, Swedish Ministry of the Environment

Water and the Baltic Sea is part of the charm of living in Stockholm and it is part of the attraction of Stockholm. That is one good example of the value of the envi-ronment.

Ecosystem degradation risk to undermine our future possibilities and welfare. As damage can be irreversible, we must act in time, long before irreversibility hap-pens. There is a need to spread this understanding to the public, and to policy-makers. We see several signs of a growing understanding. There is an increased awareness about the links between ecosystems, climate change, and human wellbe-ing.

What’s in the sea for me?, a report by the Swedish EPA which is a sort of Stern report on the marine environment and we find it is a great contribution in this work. We also welcome the commission’s communication on the EU strategy for the Baltic Sea region.

Sweden works hard with the EU strategy for the Baltic Sea region, and the EU ministers will meet here on Friday. A message from this conference will be brought forward to the EU ministerial meeting, one example of the so important science and policy interaction.

Transformation to eco-efficient economy is another priority during the Swedish presidency. It was a clear message from the ministerial meeting in Åre in July: “Ecosystems and biodiversity services need to be recognised as a precondition for a strong, competitive and sustainable economy, as well as for food production, security, climate mitigation and adaptation objectives. This should be brought into economic policy and decision-making by protecting economically and ecologically valuable eco-systems, by stimulating green investments and by pricing eco-system services with market based instruments.”

I also would like to mention the European Commission’s communication on “GDP and beyond”. This work has been going on for long, but now we start action. There is a request for indicators complementing GDP that reflect sustainability. The first step is to identify ecosystem services and the different ways to integrate them in decision-making.

We believe that this conference will give us valuable information on these issues.


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Definition, Status and Trends of marine ecosystem services Professor Carl Folke

There is generally a low awareness of the role of ecosystems as life-support sys-tems – this goes for marine systems as well as other ecosystems. Marine and coastal ecosystems generate critical ecosystem services, like seafood production, mitigation of eutrophication, water quality, storm protection, suitable habitats for commercial species, recreational opportunities, carbon sequestering, and functional diversity for dealing with change. In this presentation, marine ecosystem services were put in the context of global change and globalization, with examples from aquaculture, fisheries, coral reefs and the role of biological diversity in marine ecosystem resilience. The challenges for how to move away from segregated ap-proaches to stewardship of dynamic seascapes was outlined. Focus was on the implementation of the ecosystem approach in the context of adaptive governance and resilience. Q: Talking about resilience you talk about non steady states. Can you develop that? A: In my view the whole idea of a steady state is wrong. Our knowledge systems have evolved around the idea of a world that is stable and that changes happen occasionally. As I see it, it is the other way around. How can we be fairly stable in a changing world? Resilience is about maintaining development pathways that we would like to be in and to not go into other ones.

Carl Folke is Professor and Science Director since 2007 of the Stockholm Resil-ience Centre at Stockholm University, and the Director of the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, one of the collaborating partners of the Stockholm Resilience Centre. Carl served as Deputy Director of the Beijer Institute 1991-1996 and Director of Stockholm University's Center for Transdisciplinary Environmental Research (CTM) 1999-2006.

He is among the founders of the Resilience Alliance and serves on the Executive Committee. He has been involved in the development of the ISEE (International Society for Ecological Economics) and was engaged in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Carl has extensive experience in transdisciplinary collaboration be-tween natural and social scientists, and has worked with ecosystem dynamics and services as well as the social and economic dimension of ecosystem management and proactive measures to manage resilience. The work of his research group in Stockholm emphasizes the role that living systems at different scales play in social and economic development and how to govern and manage for resilience in inte-grated social-ecological systems.


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Marine ecosystem services – where do they come from, how are they related and what is affecting them? Docent Thorsten Blenckner

Marine ecosystem services refer to benefits that people gain from marine ecosys-tems, including the open ocean, the coastal area and estuaries. Over one third of the worlds’ population lives in coastal areas and many people throughout the world depend directly on marine ecosystem services for survival and well-being. How-ever, those services are increasingly threatened by land-use changes, overfishing, climate change, pollution, invasive species and other human related impacts. The concept of marine ecosystem services was illustrated by using the Baltic Sea as a case study area. The main components of ecosystem services are the biodiver-sity, food-web dynamics and the diversity of habitats. Together they will give rise to the various goods and services which are of direct benefit to humans. Further, they maintain resilience, which absorb disturbances and prevent regime shifts. In this presentation, the loss of resilience in the Baltic Sea was presented by the oc-currences of several regime shifts. Those regime shifts and their effect on ecosys-tem services were discussed during the talk. Q: You show that we can learn a lot from the aggregation of data from monitor-ing. With this, what is the next step in the policy arena from your perspective? A: Instead of looking at stock assessments of fish, which only show the stock of one species, we should look at indicators that reflect the state of the ecosystem. Salin-ity, zoo plankton, nutrients etc. The stock assessments could be linked to these other variables. And, we need to have a government that act on all sectors inte-grated, and also in relation to the different basins.

Thorsten Blenckner works at the Swedish Baltic Nest Institute, at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University. Thorsten has a Ph.D. in limnology and became docent in aquatic ecology in 2005 at Uppsala University. Thorsten has a strong interest in whole ecosystem processes and multiple stressors, the complexity of for example the Baltic Sea ecosystem (eutrophication, overfishing, organic pol-lution and impacts of climatic change) appear as a fascinating research field. His current research is in food-web analysis and modelling of the Baltic Sea eco-system. This includes identifying factors (e.g. overfishing, salinity, climate, and alien species) which trigger regime shifts of the Baltic Sea ecosystem. He is also involved in the ICES (International Council for the Exploration of the Sea) Work-ing Group on Integrated Assessments of the Baltic Sea. He has experiences in field sampling (physical to biological parameters), quantitative experiments (large-scale mesocosm), laboratory (background lab technician), long-term statistical data analysis and ecosystem modelling (mass-balance). Thorsten is also an Associate Editor for the journal Marine and Freshwater Research.


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Ecosystem services and actors in the world market Assistant Professor Beatrice Crona*

This presentation focused on problems related to the growing global market for fisheries products and the threat which the illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishery presents to viable fish stocks around the world. The declining stocks of the last decades and the growing demand for fish have led governments around the world to introduce tougher regulations. This has caused fishing fleets to seek new fishing grounds, the coasts of Africa being one such place. The weak institu-tions, and thus weak fisheries governance, of many of these coastal states often lead to a situation where illegal fishing undermines the conditions for local fisher-ies and food security, thereby threatening the livelihoods of poor coastal popula-tions. This presentation highlighted the alarmingly fast loss of marine biological resources and illustrated the need for political action. The term ‘Roving Bandits’ has been introduced to illustrate the difficulties facing fisheries governance bodies in the face of highly mobile market agents and exploit-ers. Questions are raised regarding how the phenomenon of Roving Bandits oper-ates. Which factors contribute to the phenomenon and what are the possible ef-fects? Which initiatives have been instigated to combat the problems? The growing illegal, unreported and unregulated fishery and the implications of this for attaining sustainable fisheries and marine ecosystem services were discussed.

Q: How can the EU act more far sighted than today? A: The back bone of many of the problems is the enormous over capacity allowing us to go anywhere to fish. There are substantially more fishing vessels than there is fish to catch. We have started to shape up the subsidy systems but there is still a technology creep, the vessels are becoming more efficient. We are in the middle of common fisheries policy reform, and the subsidies are an important part where Europe can do a lot more.

Beatrice Crona currently holds an Assistant Professorship at the Stockholm Resil-ience Centre at Stockholm University, funded by Formas. She has a PhD in Marine Ecotoxicology/Natural Resource Management from the Dept of Systems Ecology, Stockholm University. Her interests lie primarily in the area of marine and coastal social-ecological sys-tems and governance of marine resources. Her work focuses on different knowl-edge systems used for management of natural resources as well as the role of social networks for knowledge production, communication and resource management outcomes. She is also involved in work looking at the effects of trade and trading networks at the local scale and the impact of these on coastal social-ecological systems.

*This presentation was given by Henrik Österblom on the behalf of Beatrice Crona.


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Environmental Decision-Making and Valuation Professor Karl-Göran Mäler

If benefits exceed costs, an individual will consume a product. Price reveals mar-ginal valuation of the product. But no prices reveal the individual’s preferences when it comes to public goods. Therefore, society needs to find other ways of re-vealing these values.

In a classical economic analysis we study individual’s decisions, where they reveal their preferences for commodities that are infinitely divisible. It is practical to measure values in monetary units, and existing prices (as long as the individual is not rationed) reflect the individual’s marginal valuations. However, environmental goods and services cannot always be bought and sold on markets and there are not always market prices. One reason is that these goods cannot be divided up between individuals. Climate is, perhaps, the best example of a public good. For such goods, we have to rely on direct or indirect valuation methods. There are two classes of methods for preference revelation. The first is composed of direct methods – asking people of their values. This is, a popular method today, but has been heavily criticized by many economists and psychologists. The other class – indirect methods – consists of methods that rely on observations of how changes in “environment” affect individual behaviour. If we are studying a situation with several individuals (and we always are), it seems natural to add the values over all individuals to derive social values. However, this is not correct considering the distribution of income. Hence, economists have de-veloped techniques to attach weights to individuals in order to incorporate our values on distribution. Sustainable development is basically a requirement on intertemporal distribution of welfare. In order to assess whether current development is consistent with such a requirement, we need to understand the impact of our current actions on future stock of productive capital. By using accounting prices for capital stocks: manmade capital, fish stocks, CO2-concentrations in the atmosphere, etc. we measure the impact on the present value of the future welfare from a marginal change today of the stocks. We then can test whether the current development is consistent with sustainable development by calculating the value of changes in all stocks of capital today, using these accounting prices. The value of the stocks is derived from the value of the flows it generates. Thus we need to make a forecast of the develop-ment of these stocks and find out the effects on this forecast from a perturbation of the stocks today. Q: According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, human wellbeing is increasing although the production of ecosystem services is decreasing. How come? Are ecosystem services really important?


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A: How do we know wellbeing is increasing? If you take natural capital into ac-count we are not getting richer. We have believed that we are getting richer but that is at the cost of ruining some natural ecosystems.

Karl-Göran Mäler is Professor Emeritus in Economics at the Stockholm School of Economics and former Director of the Beijer International Institute of Ecologi-cal Economics of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. His current research interests include resource and environmental economics; option values and irre-versible environmental changes; cost-benefit analysis of the environment; and development and environment. Together with Professor Partha Dasupta he was awarded the 2002 Volvo Environment Prize. Professor Mäler also teaches and serves as a thesis advisor for graduate students.


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Valuing marine ecosystem services in practice Professor Steve Polasky Distortions in decision-making damage the provision of ecosystem services making human society and the environment poorer. Ecosystem services should be factored into everyday decisions by individuals, businesses and governments. To mainstream ecosystem services into decisions we need to:

• Understand the provision of ecosystem services (quantification) • Understand the benefits to human well-being from ecosystem services

(valuation) • Create incentives for sustainable provision of ecosystem services (pol-

icy/governance)

The Natural Capital Project works with the InVEST-model: Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs. It is a set of computer-based models, looking into biodiversity and multiple services, giving both biophysical and economic out-puts. In a spatially explicit analysis the joint provision of services given by one landscape and the many consequences and tradeoffs among services under alterna-tive management is revealed.

When doing monetary valuations the typical approach is linear: calculate a per hectare value and multiply by number of hectares. But as neither ecological pro-duction functions nor values of ecosystem services are constants, a correct ap-proach requires estimating these varying functions i.e. a non-linear approach.

Challenges include: increased understanding of the dynamic and interconnected social-ecological systems, and particularly how to incorporate variability, uncer-tainty, thresholds and regime shifts. When it comes to valuation we face challenges as whether we understand systems well enough to establish payments for ecosys-tem services; the danger of not correctly tying payments to service provision e.g. the case of carbon and tillage practices; as well as how to capture the importance of cultural, spiritual and aesthetic values. When designing policy instruments the distribution of benefits must be considered, the relationship to poverty alleviation and a general discussion on equity and justice is needed.

Q: Do you see other means than economic valuation to incorporate ecosystem services into decision-making? A: The important issue is to trace systematically what the tradeoffs are between different human uses of an ecosystem. Sometimes it is most convincing to put in monetary terms. If something is easily transformed into a dollar price, if there is a market for it, so do it. The value of fishery production compared to shrimp farming, it is simple and straight forward to put prices on those alternatives. But if tradeoffs are between the conservation of species compared to shrimp farming. I will not attempt to convert the value of the biodiversity to monetary terms. I will show what


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the tradeoffs are. It is about communicating the tradeoffs. Sometimes it is best done in biophysical terms sometimes in monetary terms.

Steve Polasky is Professor and holds a joint appointment between the Department of Applied Economics and the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior at the University of Minnesota. Steve was senior staff economist for environment and resources for the President’s Council of Economic Advisers 1998-1999. He is a Research Fellow of the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics in Stockholm. His research interests include biodiversity conservation, integrating ecological and economic analysis, ecosystem services, renewable energy, environmental regula-tion, and common property resources.


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Policy challenges for marine resilience and shift of ecosystems Dr Anne-Sophie Crepin Many coastal and marine systems can suddenly shift between alternate states that provide quite different bundles of goods and services to human beings. For exam-ple the Baltic Sea seems to have shifted from a clear state to a state where algae bloom occur very regularly with negative impacts on tourism and fisheries. Once the sudden change has occurred, going back is more or less costly and sometimes impossible. Further, there are strong indications that the magnitude and the fre-quency of change between alternate states are likely to increase in the near future due to human activities' global consequences for major biogeochemical processes that affect ecosystems. In a world where there is an increasing need for goods and services from ecosys-tems it is very important to study how our traditional policy instruments like taxes or quantity regulation can cope with ecosystems’ potential shifts. This is a funda-mental scientific challenge and preliminary results indicate that decision-making must develop a different approach than has been traditionally used when such re-gime shifts were rare events. This requires the launch of a new broad research ini-tiative to study how to cope with ecosystem with potential shifts. Q: How do you deal with situations where we have gone through a number of different shifts? A: It is very tricky, but the principles about precaution and being adaptive still hold. The key is to find institutions that are more flexible and that more clearly reflect how people and nature interact. Anne-Sophie Crépin is a research associate and newly appointed Deputy Director at the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. She is also part of the Stockholm Resilience Centre. She is an environ-mental and resource economist focusing on resources and services that stem from ecosystems with complex dynamics due to for example multiple species, fast and slow variables, and threshold effects. Most of her work is based on small theoreti-cal dynamic models that combine relevant economic factors with complex ecosys-tem dynamics.


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Deep-sea ecosystem goods and services: A challenge to socio-economics Professor Sybille van den Hove

The deep sea includes the waters and seabed areas below a depth of 200 meters. It constitutes 64 % of the surface of the Earth and 90 % of our planet’s ocean area. Our deep oceans are teeming with an amazing diversity of organisms of all size and types, assembled in a wide variety of ecosystems. Deep oceans are believed to host the highest biodiversity on Earth. Deep-sea processes and ecosystems are not only crucial for the marine web of life; they also fundamentally contribute to global biogeochemical cycles that support all life on Earth. In addition, they provide direct goods and services that are of growing direct economic significance. This presentation was built on socio-economic and governance research from the EU funded project HERMES (Hotspot Ecosystem Research on the Margins of European Seas). A review of the goods and services provided by deep-sea ecosys-tems and the rising impacts from human activities on deep-sea habitats and ecosys-tems was given. The specific challenges posed by the valuation of our deep marine environment were highlighted and reflections on the role of valuation at the inter-face between science and policy were made. The forthcoming socio-economic research under the new HERMIONE project was introduced (Hotspot Ecosystem Research and Man's Impact on European Seas).

Q: How do you see that the work of informing decision makers can broaden the discussion rather than narrowing it down to a number? A: We still work very much as it is the role of science to inform the policy makers. But we need to have an interaction; you need to combine the scientific knowledge with the policy knowledge. The science transformed in one way street we lose the necessary learning that needs to happen in both groups.

Sybille van den Hove is Director of MEDIAN, a small research, teaching and consulting company, and Visiting Professor at the Institute for Environmental Sci-ence and Technology (ICTA) of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Sybille’s expertise is in science-policy interfaces for environmental governance, participatory approaches to environmental decision-making, integration of natural and social sciences research, and corporate environmental strategies. Her current core areas of research are biodiversity policies at international and EU levels, and socioeconomic aspects of biodiversity change. Her background is high-energy physics and ecological economics. She is involved in several European Commis-sion Framework program (FP6 and FP7) research projects including HERMES, HERMIONE, Rubicode, SCALES and BioStrat. She is a member of the Scientific Committee of the European Environment Agency and the chair of the Scientific Advisory Council of the European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy (EDIT) net-work of excellence.


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In the context of the HERMES project (Hotspot Ecosystem Research on the Mar-gins of European Seas) she prepared a report for UNEP entitled "Deep-sea biodi-versity and ecosystems: A scoping report on their socio-economy, management and governance". In the recently started HERMIONE project (Hotspot Ecosystem Re-search and Man's Impact on European Seas), she is leading the socio-economic, governance and science-policy interface work.


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Panel discussion with Karl-Göran Mäler, Anne-Sophie Crépin, Steve Polasky and Sybille van den Hove

The panel emphasized that ecosystem services are crucial for human wellbeing. Even though many indicators of wellbeing have increased, while the generation of most ecosystem services has decreased, our development is not sustainable. To see this, we need to look both at the flow of resources that we enjoy today and at the stock that we leave for future generations. If natural capital is taken into account, we are not getting richer. In other words, we are having a party now, but will have to face the consequences tomorrow.

The panel also discussed the need for a strengthened science-policy dialogue and agreed that such a dialogue is more about mutual learning than about scientists giving policy-makers advice. However, many important land-use decisions are taken on local and regional levels, fairy isolated from the current science-policy discussions. Such gaps between knowledge and action need to be closed, for exam-ple through cross-scale interactions. It is also important, but challenging, to do interdisciplinary science to understand status and trends of ecosystem services.

Good examples of integration of ecosystem services into policy came up, including cases from Quito, Ecuador; and Bogota, Colombia, where payments for water are used to protect the watershed. Another example was New York City, which gets its water from restored ecosystems in Catskill Mountains. When the city faced deterio-rating water quality, they chose to protect the watershed instead of building a filtra-tion plant, based on economic assessments of both alternatives. The possibilities and risks with monetary valuations were discussed. Sometimes there is a pressure to quantify and even put prices on things that are impossible to quantify, because the issues that are not quantified tend to be forgotten. However it is important to remember that values can be expressed and taken into account also without a price tag. After all, we make decisions all the time without knowing the exact economic consequences of different choices. It was agreed that monetary estimates do help us in some cases, and have often worked as an eye-opener. Also, it is important to remember who the beneficiary is when doing monetary valuation. Opinions differ regarding desired outcomes as well as desired processes, and on whether it is the process or the outcome that counts. The panel concluded that what we are aiming for is finding the best way of show-ing what the tradeoffs are. Sometimes, this is best done by monetary valuation but many times, it is a better understanding of the world that is needed. If there is an understanding of the ecological dynamics and functions of e.g. a forest, there is no need for a monetary value to realize that the forest is valuable. We need to visualize the value of ecosystems in a multitude of ways. It is true that a picture can say more than a thousand words. And generally, we need better ex-


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planations of the world and what sustains human well-being. The panel saw signs of hope in processes like the Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Eco-system Services (IPBES) now discussed at the global level, and the Marine Strat-egy Framework Directive adopted at the EU level. The EEAs report “Late lessons from early warnings” was highlighted when the panel was discussing the problem with irreversibility.


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Day 1, September 16 Sweden’s work on marine ecosystem services Ann-Louise Månsson, Swedish Marine Director

Yesterday we heard a lot of interesting presentations on ecosystem services and their values. The party is soon over and we leave a hang over to the next genera-tion. There was an interesting discussion on GDP and that we are not as rich as we think we are.

Can we afford not to invest in the environment? The Stern report on climate change was a new kick off in this respect, showing the impact on the economy if we do not deal with the climate issue. What cost are there from no or wrong action? This is something we also work on in Sweden. We have made the report “What is in the sea for me?” to see what it is that we invest in to restore.

Last week we arranged a high level meeting in Strömstad, where the chair con-cluded “the need to fully integrate the value of ecosystem services into economic decision-making” Sweden will continue to focus on this complex issue in the fu-ture, taking the lead together with UK in the work on the Marine Strategy Frame-work Directive.

I would like to finalise with 3 main conclusions on what makes this work success-ful:

• Work close with science – one example is the report that the Stockholm Resilience Centre made for the Strömstad meeting.

• The science and the policy community need to speak the same language. We need to ask science in the right words for what we need. We need the scientist conclusions to be usable in policy arenas.

• Noting is of any use if we cannot communicate this work to where the power lies. Budgetary administrations need to be included in these discus-sions. This kind of seminar should be arranged by the Ministry of Finance or Industry – then we have succeeded.


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EEA’s work on the marine environment Jacqeline McGlade, Executive Director of the European Environment Agency

The EEA is engaged in many aspects of the marine environment. We have a clear indication that things are not as they were. There are several areas that need our ongoing attention. But we also need to step back and see the value of ecosystems.

In our work “Fishing beyond the net” we try to bring the whole biosphere to the mind’s eyes. Ecosystem Accounting – is a way to say how much cash flow that the ecosystem is creating. We need to engage more people to bring their data to help us in this. We need both traditional knowledge and scientific research. The EEA is working with many different groups, trying to tell what happens today. But we also need the citizens out there to tell us what goes on. We have the project “Water-watch” together with Microsoft where anyone is invited to report on e.g. what hap-pens on my beach. We are integrating people in the monitoring and action, not only informing people on the problems. We work also for free access to information at all levels and directions. Combining data from models, satellites and observations give new information.

Climate change – oceans need to find their part in the climate discussion. They are intricately connected to the climate. And the warming signal from the ocean will stay for 1000 years. Meaning that the general dynamics of the oceans that we are accustomed to will change.

This will be particularly highlighted during Oceans day 14 December in Copenha-gen.


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Management of marine ecosystem services in practice – experiences from the Great Barrier Reef Professor Terry Hughes

All have seen the pictures of shifted ecosystems. Threshold dynamics has been experienced by many coral reef ecologists. To know why this is happening we need an understanding of the ecosystem dynamics of the system we are managing. The structure of the food webs in coral reefs has changed dramatically by the impact of people as we are fishing down the food web, i.e. the fishing has moved from top predators down to e.g. herbivorous fish. Herbivores graze the coral reef thereby controlling the macro-algae. The combination of runoff, overfishing, and increas-ingly climate change are the three issues for coral reefs as well as the Baltic Sea and other coastal ecosystems.

But coral reefs should not be viewed as pristine ecosystems “over there”. They are a part of the social-ecological systems including the fishing and other uses. Manag-ing the reefs is neither about maintaining nor going back to a certain state. We are going somewhere no matter what we do. We need to make our governance forward looking, aiming to go to a desirable place.

Some facts about the Great Barrier Reef (GBR): 1 million people; 70 indigenous groups, 2 million tourists, 80 000 recreational vessels but no big commercial fish-ery, nor subsistence fishery. Economic value $6 billion, which is a way to say this area is important. About 63 000 people are working in the tourism sector. GBR has an iconic status; people are attached to it and support its protection.

The agency Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, GBRMPA, has been navi-gating the transition to an ecosystem based management. The agency was created from a public uproar in 1976 as the state of Queensland wanted to drill for oil in the GBR. The federal government then established the agency that since then con-trols the whole GBR. It is as if the EU would decide to put one agency to run the Baltic or the North Sea. GBRMPA operates on a system of zoning and it evolves in response to environmental change.

In 2003 the pressure from run-off, climate-change, and fishing showed to be too large. The management response to these drivers was a large rezoning of the whole GBR. Management efforts were up-scaled, no take zones increased from 5% to 33%. The rezoning of the GBR aimed at maintaining ecological function and resil-ience, anticipating future uncertainty. This was foregone e.g. by learning from others (the Caribbean), and large scale experiments: over 20 individual reefs were studied to see the effects of opening and closing of the reefs.

The key features for the whole process were: institutional learning; leadership; adaptive organizational structures; harnessing scientific expertise – mapping, habi-


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tat types and connectivity; public engagement, education, and consultation; and navigating a political window to achieve new legislation.

Q: How was the no-take areas decided upon? A: Before the rezoning there was a huge mapping exercise to reveal what habitats there were. This mapping found 77 different types of habitats and the goal of the rezoning was to set aside 20% of each of these habitats. This was a precautionary decision, we don’t know the connections between all these habitats but we know there are connections. Now we see close to a doubling of biomass in these new no take zones.

Terry Hughes is Professor and Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, which is headquartered at James Cook Uni-versity, Australia. His research focuses on the linkages between the ecology of tropical reefs and their importance for societies and economies. He has worked extensively in Australia, the western and central Pacific, and in the Caribbean. An important aspect of his research is about understanding the dynamics and resilience of coral reefs, and translating this knowledge into innovative and practical solu-tions for improved reef management. Especially for developing countries, sustain-ing coastal ecosystems is an economic and social imperative. Professor Hughes is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and the Beijer Institute for Ecological Economics, Stockholm. He is an ISI Highly Cited Re-searcher, and was recognized in 2008 by the International Coral Reef Society, with the award of the society’s Darwin Medal. His publications include 19 papers in Science and Nature.


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Fisheries Management in the Baltic Sea: applying best practice Dr Henrik Österblom and Dr David Symes (the latter unable to attend)

Among the factors contributing to the distressed state of the Baltic Sea ecosystem is the overexploitation of its fisheries. Despite claims in the EU Regulation on the conservation and sustainable exploitation of fisheries resources (COM 2371/2002) concerning the progressive implementation of an ecosystem based approach to fisheries management, improvement has been inconspicuous. One reason for this is the lack of an appropriate institutional framework within which to develop an eco-system based approach. With the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy in 2012 providing a window of opportunity to turn things around, Baltic Sea 2020 under-took a review of the failings of the current management system and, using experi-ence of fisheries management in Norway, USA and Canada, has set out a menu of best practice for ensuring sustainable fisheries in the Baltic Sea. The presentation focused on two interlinked themes at the heart of the reform agenda for the Baltic Sea: regionalisation and the development of an ecosystem based approach to fish-eries management.

Q: The Great Barrier Reef is governed by one agency: GBRMPA; while the Bal-tic Sea is governed by many, could you comment on that? A: The governance of the Baltic is more complex and it will probably take more time. We need this integration between different sectors. But what is developing now is the Baltic Sea Regional Advisory Council and that is a unifying force that is a good base to build upon. The leadership in this regional advisory council is good and there is a strong credibility. Now we have the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, we have the Baltic Sea Action Plan, we have to fisheries policy reform process, so we have a window of opportunity to do something unique.

Henrik Österblom is a researcher and science-policy coordinator at the Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University. He is theme leader for the Coastal and marine research theme at the centre and is working on understanding the dynamics of marine social-ecological system, primarily related to fisheries management and marine ecosystem governance. He is a member of the Swedish Council for Bio-logical Diversity, a council that function as a link between the scientific commu-nity and policy makers, primarily in relation to the Convention on Biological Di-versity, and an advisor to the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation.

David Symes is Reader Emeritus in the University of Hull. A social scientist with a long established interest in the governance of Europe's fisheries and a strong advocate of regionalisation of the Common Fisheries Policy, he has published ex-tensively on fisheries management, as well as rural social development. He has acted as consultant on fisheries matters to statutory environmental agencies in the UK and as an advisor to the European Commission. Currently he is serving as a member of the Scottish Government's inquiry into the future of fisheries manage-ment.


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Improved water quality in the Baltic Sea - from modelling nutrient loads to policy design for reduced eutrophication Associate Professor Christoph Humborg and Dr Henrik Scharin

The Baltic Sea Action Plan (BSAP) addresses all the major environmental prob-lems affecting the Baltic marine environment. The environmental situation in the Baltic Sea has drastically changed over recent decades. Human activities both on the sea and throughout its catchment area are placing rapidly increasing pressure on marine ecosystems. Of the many environmental challenges, the most serious and difficult to tackle with conventional approaches is the continuing eutrophication of the Baltic Sea. The decision support system NEST has played an instrumental role in identifying the needed nutrient reductions (Maximum allowable nutrient input) to achieve “Good environmental status" as defined by international decision-makers in Helcom. Using the Nest Decision Support System, the Swedish branch of Baltic Nest Institute (BNI) developed the “Country-wise nutrient reduction tar-gets", which was adopted in the Baltic Sea Action Plan, by Helcom on November 15, 2007. BNI and NEST also play an important role in the current update and the revision of the BSAP nutrient reduction targets.

Developing a cost-effective policy aiming at reducing the nutrient load to the Baltic Sea is a major task due to the complexity of the problem. There are economic, biological as well as technical uncertainties with regard to the different measures and their final impact on the eutrophication problem of the Baltic Sea. The fact that the impact on the Baltic Sea from discharges differs depending on the location of the source makes uniform policies inefficient, and calls for the implementation of geographically differentiated policy instruments. There is a huge experience of differentiated market-based policy instruments aimed towards nutrients in the U.S., and the Swedish proposal is to some extent similar to a credit trading system re-cently implemented in Ohio, U.S. The proposed Swedish fee system has the potential to reduce these economic and biological uncertainties while at the same time achieve cost-effective reduction of the nutrient load. The system consists of three integrated markets: one for compen-satory measures, one for fee payments and a third, later stage second hand market, for trade of permits to discharge. The market for compensatory measures allows the regulating authority to consider positive synergy effects on other ecosystem services in its choice of measures. The market for fee payments finances the com-pensatory measures by requiring payments from sources that discharges nutrients. A pilot study of the proposed system will start within the next couple of years. Christoph Humborg is Director of the Swedish Baltic Nest Institute. He is by background a biogeochemist from Stockholm University and associate professor working on issues related to coastal biogeochemistry. Research interests include land-sea fluxes of biogenic elements (carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and silicon); man-made changes of nitrogen and phosphorus fluxes in watersheds; biogeochem-


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istry of enclosed seas (Baltic Sea, Black Sea); and global warming induced changes in carbon fluxes in taiga and tundra biomes Henrik Scharin is currently working as an environmental economist at the Swed-ish Ministry for the Environment. He has a Ph.D. in economics from the Dept of Economics, Swedish University of Agriculture Sciences. He previously worked at the Swedish EPA where he was involved with the implementation of the EU’s Water Frame Work Directive as well as the Baltic Sea Action plan (BSAP). His work has focused on market based policy instruments especially with regard to water related environmental problem, such as eutrophication.


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Integrated and eco-system based management of the marine envi-ronment of the Barents Sea Per W. Schive, Norwegian Ministry of the Environment

The purpose of the Management Plans for the Norwegian Sea Areas (Norwegian part of the Barents Sea (2006), the Norwegian Sea (2009) and the Norwegian part of the North Sea (in preparation)), is to provide a framework for the sustainable use of natural resources and goods derived from the sea and at the same time maintain the structure, functioning and productivity of the marine ecosystems. The manage-ment plans are thus a tool to facilitate value creation within the limits of a healthy ecosystem. An important aspect is further to facilitate the co-existence of different industries, particularly fisheries, offshore oil and gas and marine transport. In order to achieve this objective an extending process involving the scientific community, the general public, local and sector authorities and all Ministries concerned, has been established. The Management plans has been agreed by the Norwegian Gov-ernment and presented as white papers to the Norwegian Parliament.

Q: What challenges do you meet with the co-existence of oil, gas, and off shore wind mills? A: There are conflicts but they are handled under the management plans. And with the zoning of the marine areas the tension has cooled down.

Per W. Schive is the Deputy Director General in the Norwegian Ministry of the Environment responsible for Freshwater and Marine Environmental Protection issues. He is engaged in the preparation of the integrated ocean management plans for Norwegian Sea Areas presented by the Norwegian Government (Norwegian part of the Barents Sea – Lofoten area (2006), the Norwegian Sea (2009) and the Norwegian part of the North Sea (in preparation)). Thereby, he has a large role in the international marine cooperation within the London Convention, OSPAR Con-vention, Arctic Council and North Sea Conferences.


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Ecosystem services and the UK’s approach to the Marine Strategy Framework Directive Kirsty Inglis, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, UK The presentation described recent developments in the UK’s approach to marine management, the UK’s commitment to evidence-based policy-making, and pro-gress to date on understanding the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) from an analytical perspective. The Marine and Coastal Access Bill (due for Royal Assent in 2009) is a ground-breaking piece of legislation that provides an ambitious and wide-ranging struc-tured approach to marine management. The Bill addresses the whole management cycle from setting policy objectives to local decision-making and will be a key vehicle for the delivery of much of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive. The Bill was supported by an extensive evidence base including the quantification of the ecosystem services benefits of the legislation. This evidence base will inform the UK’s approach to the transposition and implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive. The presentation outlined what the UK is doing to build upon existing evidence and highlighted the remaining issues that will need to be tackled over the coming years.

Q: Has the Marine Strategy Framework Directive helped you? A: Yes, I think is has. The MSFD was helpful in getting the Marine Bill through parliament.

Kirsty Inglis works as an economist in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in the United Kingdom. She works in the Marine and Fisher-ies Economics Unit with a particular focus on the Marine Strategy Framework Directive and a range of domestic legislation including the UK’s Marine and Coastal Access Bill, the introduction of Marine Conservation Zones, marine spatial planning and embedding ecosystem services valuation into the policy making proc-ess. Kirsty is also the UK delegate to the OECD’s Fisheries Committee.


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The Black Sea easy way to bring the values of marine ecosystems into decision-making Dr Violeta Velikova, the Black Sea Commission

Economic value presents a currency that is universally understood by policy mak-ers, economists, scientists and politicians alike (Beaumont et al., 2007). Monetary valuations of Black Sea fisheries decline, invasion of opportunistic species (Knowler, 1997, 2005) and of losses in tourism are available. They played an im-portant role in attracting the attention of decision-makers and in promoting of good political will in the early 1990s to start restoring and protecting the Black Sea eco-system. Yet, there is no literature on valuing the cost of losing recreational poten-tial of coastal resources, public health risks associated with chemical pollution, welfare losses resulting from biodiversity change, little is known also about the use and non-use benefits of possible restoration policies. Less apparent ecosystem services, such as nutrient cycling and removal of by-products of industrial or agri-cultural production were considered ‘for free’. However, the lack of economic estimates does not mean lack of valuation and corresponding decision-making and investments. How did this happen? There is no doubt that people have stronger preference to care about ecosystem functions which directly affect human welfare. The Black Sea itself started a dialogue with people in the 1980s, making them think about the changes observed and the consequences for welfare. An example of this process is the communication of the following opposites:

• No fish – Instead mass jelly blooms will torment your holidays. • High nutrient loads – Eutrophication will be your plague through noxious

blooms, dead fish, repulsive smell, pathogenic bacteria, etc. • Chemical pollution – Contamination of biota will not allow you to con-

sume seafood. The degradation was so obvious, that there was no particular need to show calcula-tions to the decision-makers in order to make them sign and ratify (1992-1994, in two years only) the Convention for the Protection of the Black Sea Against Pollu-tion and three Protocols. A few examples from the Black Sea region where values of marine ecosystems were brought into decision-making in one or another way and results of actions were observed was presented.

Q: It is often not that easy to make diverse stakeholders come together and find common ground for action. Do we have to have a crisis for people to get to-gether? A: Yes, I am afraid so. Before crises people think some more, some more. When there is a crisis the need for action is so obvious that there is no doubt.

Violeta Velikova, Bulgarian, is a physical oceanographer with a PhD in Marine Biology (Moscow, Russian Academy of Science) and more than 20 years experi-ence in different aspects of marine science. She has worked in the Ukrainian Eco-logical Center for Marine Research in Bulgaria for the Institute of Fisheries in


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South Africa for the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Since Janu-ary 2007, Mrs. Velikova works in Turkey for the Black Sea Commission, being responsible at the regional level for issues related to pollution, monitoring, assess-ments, biodiversity, fishery, integrated coastal zone management, environmental safety aspects of shipping, etc. Her work in the Black Sea Commission Permanent Secretariat includes e.g. policy and legal documents development, monitoring of their implementation, communi-cation with many international organizations and providing recommendations for decision-making in restoration and conservation of marine ecosystems. Mrs. Ve-likova is a member of the UNESCO-BRESCE Scientific Counsel and in the advi-sory board or partner in different scientific projects e.g. SESAME, EuropeAid, EMODNET, EnviroGRIDS, CaspInfo, BlackSeaSCENE


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Full implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive – the key to unfolding the potential of the EU Maritime Policy Peter Gammeltoft, Directorate General for the Environment, European Commis-sion The Marine Strategy Framework Directive establishes a framework within which all Member States shall take the necessary measures to achieve or maintain good environmental status in the marine environment by the year 2020 at the latest. In the Preparatory phase the EU Member States must progressively develop action plans in several steps. By 15 July 2012 they shall have made descriptions and as-sessments of current environmental status, including the environmental impact of human activities; they shall have determined good environmental status; and estab-lished environmental targets and associated indicators. By 15 July 2014 there shall be monitoring programmes in place. By 2015 the Marine Strategies will culminate with programme of measures towards good environmental status –– for both land based and sea based pressures, and the final goal is Good Environmental Status by 2020.

The MSFD has a regional approach, plans shall be specific to each sea basin, and they shall build upon existing activities developed in the framework of regional seas conventions. The MSFD asks for adaptive management, with regular review every 6 years.

A process linking to the Marine Framework Directive is the EU Maritime Policy. The European Council “welcomes the conclusion of the Marine Strategy Frame-work Directive as the environmental pillar of the integrated EU maritime policy”

Some key features of the Maritime policy show how it can interlink with the Framework directive:

• Sustainable use of the sea • Improved data and information about the sea and for sea based activity • Improved coordination of activities in the maritime area • National and regional systems for marine spatial planning • Integrating marine surveillance systems • European Strategy for Marine and Maritime Research – “The Ocean of

Tomorrow”

Right now the implementation of the MSFD is beginning, and it is an important time to get involved. The Common Implementation Strategy provides opportunity for Member States, stakeholders and other experts to develop common approaches. Lots of important work is going to improve understanding of the role of ecosys-tems. Strong linkages need to be made between policy and research to ensure im-plementation is based on high-quality data. Effective multidisciplinary communica-tion is needed. Adaptive management approach of MSFD provides opportunity for emerging research to be taken into account in future.


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Q: How do you go from policy to action? A: Right now action is up to the member states. But with the financial crisis they need to feel a public pressure, because otherwise these issues will not be priori-tized. We need to get the message across that if we ignore the environment that will have a negative impact on the jobs. Peter Gammeltoft is since 2006 Head of Protection of the Water and Marine En-vironment Unit (Unit ENV.D.2.) at the Directorate General for the Environment, European Commission. His current responsibilities include protection of Fresh, Marine and Groundwater, Drinking water quality and the EU Water Initiative (EUWI). He has long experience in especially water policy especially but also in air policy.


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Panel discussion with Peter Gammeltoft, Violeta Velikova, Per W. Schive and Anne Christine Brusendorff, Executive Secretary of the Helsinki Commission The panel discussion started in the question of who are really the decision-makers when it comes to the marine environment. Many sectors are involved, and even though it might be easy to get the ear of the ministers of environment, this is not enough. Problems of the oceans relate to fishing, transport, trade, energy, agricul-ture and so on. The issue of eutrophication exemplifies this challenge: nutrients stem from both agriculture and transport; and then the problems are strengthened by overfishing. Problems are interrelated, but decision-making is scattered. In-creased coordination is needed and more frequent dialogues between different areas of policy are necessary. These dialogues are not always easy, but the panel noted that progress is being made. In addition to policy-makers in various sectors, the following key actors for manag-ing the marine environment where mentioned:

• The people meeting in Copenhagen, deciding on how to tackle climate change

• Scientists, as we still need better monitoring and more knowledge • Consumers who choose what to buy • Citizens with an awareness of the fact that jobs are not more important

than the environment, but instead, the environment is crucial if we are to have any jobs at all – especially in times of financial crises

• NGOs, for political pressure • Fishermen • Aquaculture industry • Farmers

Then, the panel moved on to discussing actions that would help decision-makers to take ecosystem services into account. The panel emphasized the need for enhanced science-policy interfaces (e.g. like the collaboration between Baltic Nest Institute and Helcom); educational kits; and quantification; which in turn requires integrated monitoring. Other suggestions were so called jumbo meetings, i.e. meetings with ministers from different sectors at the EU level such as environmental and fisher-ies; an enhanced focus on rural development in the common agricultural policy, redirecting agricultural subsidies from production; and reform of the EU common agricultural policy and fishing policy. The EU line of action outside the union is also important, one example regarding the fishing in the high seas.

The importance of increasing environmental awareness was raised several times, and various suggestions for doing this came up. For example, the sea is sequester-ing enormous amounts of CO2, and economic valuations can be a tool to communi-cate that this is a service that is very important to society. But the panel also reiter-ated the risks of monetary valuation discussed the previous day. For example, in


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the case of valuing carbon sequestration, if the carbon market price goes down, you might stand there with a result saying that the ocean or another ecosystem is not as valuable after all. A more robust way of communicating the service of CO2-sequestration is to estimate what it corresponds to in emissions. It was again con-cluded that it is not only economic values that communicate. The beauty of a coral reef is better captured in pictures, and the effects of an oil spill are better communi-cated by the photo of an oil damaged bird. The ecosystem approach was discussed as a way to integrate ecosystem services in decision-making. The panel agreed that it should be seen as a process rather that a fixed way of working and that it requires a lot of knowledge from various disci-plines working together: natural sciences, social sciences and technology. But sci-entific advice is not the end product; rather it is one input where other information must come from various stakeholders. If the ecosystem approach is to be made operational, there is a need for open ongoing debate, enabling all to see the others’ positions. New knowledge and understanding might led to the need to change the way forward and we might have to reopen targets. This should not be seen as a failure – rather, it is learning. In fact, the ecosystem approach is a regime shift for management. It is a process, you are never there, and the concept must not be un-derestimated. It is about value creation in the longer term and this approach is growing in recognition. The panel lifted positive trends that should be used to build on:

• EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive • Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services,

IPBES • The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, TEEB • The Black Sea Commission • Norway, eg good cooperation with Russia, now the stocks are rebuilding, • Upcoming reform of fisheries policy • Baltic Sea Action plan

The panel discussion ended on a high note, underlining that there is a huge wave to surf on now, in terms of awareness and will to enhance management of marine systems. More integrated approaches are being applied and we see a lot of political interest. And this is needed, as climate change will increase the pressure on the marine systems. Finally, the panel concluded that prosperity depends on the environment. There are many good steps taken and now there is a need for policy consistency.

stockholm september 16-17, 2009 - european...

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