OPERAs webinar 2 question by Miriam Grace

What are the particular challenges of this in marine ecosystems?

Comments

Ilse Gejzendorffer: Well I have to admit I am more of a dry feet person then a wet feet person. But what I know from my colleagues that work on marine ecosystem services is, first of all there is a great difference in the availability of methodology and data. I think that for a lot of the terrestrial parts we have made huge progress, notably in the mapping of ecosystem services. We are still not there yet, but it has really improved. Mapping of ecosystem services  is obviously a lot more difficult for marine ecosystems. So in terms of data, collecting data, and knowing what is where, this is very difficult. And if you also think about the whole ownership problem. If you are a terrestrial person then you say ‘this is my land’ or this is a natural park. But on sea, it’s very difficult to see who exactly uses which part for what. And therefore, for instance, including actors in developing sustainable solutions is much more tricky. So I think that marine areas, given the importance for human wellbeing and climate change really deserves a lot more attention and ecosystem services method development in order to strengthen that sector. 

Posted on: 22 Sep 2017 - 17:46