Dossier
Ecosystem services
Ecosystems provide services to humankind. Those may involve the provision of a product (e.g. drinking water), a regulatory authority (e.g, pollination of crops), a cultural service (e.g, providing opportunities for recreation), or a service that supports the services mentioned earlier (e.g the cycle of nutrients in an ecosystem). This dossier contains news, background information and research results relating to ecosystem services.
News about ecosystem services
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WUR to counter climate change in European Green Deal
08 December 2021 - News - A climate-neutral European Union by 2050 and an inclusive, sustainable economy. This is what the European Green Deal, the European Commission's ambitious programme to counter climate change, aims to achieve. The latest Horizon 2020 call focused entirely on the European Green Deal, with a total budget of one billion euros. Wageningen University & Research participates in nine of the approved projects. -
Nature as buffer against climate change
13 February 2020 - News - Areas in which natural processes are given space may function as buffer against climate change. Ever since 2008, the Dutch coalition for Natuurlijke Klimaatbuffers has been working in more than 70 projects on ‘nature-based climate buffers’. A recent evaluation by Wageningen Environmental Research (WENR) indicates a large potential to establish nature-based climate buffers. This option is, however, usually not included in regular planning processes. -
Nature’s decline ‘unprecedented’ in human history: 1 million species threatened with extinction
07 May 2019 - News - The current global efforts are insufficient to stop the unprecedented decline of nature: drastic societal changes are necessary to stop the loss of biodiversity and restore nature. This is the conclusion the Global Assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The assessment analyzes the causes for the loss of biodiversity, the implications for people worldwide, and options for bending the curve of the loss of biodiversity. The Global Assessment was prepared by 150 leading international experts from 50 countries, among them are two Dutch experts from Wageningen University & Research.
Research on ecosystem services
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INTERCEDE (Incentivising future forest ecosystem services and incomes in Europe)
21 March 2024 - Project - INTERCEDE aims to enhance the value of Europe’s forests by identifying and upscaling market-based instruments, developing policy frameworks and guidelines, and reducing the gap between high-level research, policy and practice. -
FutureMARES
01 January 2023 - Project - Marine ecosystems provide fundamental climate regulation, food and cultural services. FutureMARES focuses on socially responsible and economically viable actions, strategies and nature-based solutions to safeguard these ecosystem services. -
R-LINK
09 March 2021 - Project - Small-scale and bottom-up initiatives, and incremental urban development dominate various political agendas. These initiatives, termed Community-Linked Incremental Urban Developments (CLIUDs) here, remain underexplored. -
Effects of organic farming on private and public ecosystem services and grassland multifunctionality (ServiceGrass)
30 January 2020 - Project - ServiceGrass is a project coordinated by Dr. Valentin Klaus, from USYS (Grassland Group), ETH Zurich. Partners from ETH, Agroscope, University of Bern collaborate to study the effects of organic farming on private and public ecosystem services and grassland multifunctionality, in a Swiss canton. -
Energy gardens in the Netherlands: sustainable energy production, nature, landscape, recreation and education
19 December 2019 - Project - Sustainable energy production can be a valuable addition to landscapes and nature, as the Dutch Nature and Environment Federations (Natuur en Milieufederaties) and Wageningen University & Research aim to show with the Energy Garden project. In these energy gardens, large-scale renewable energy production will go hand-in-hand with nature development, recreation and education. This approach makes it possible to address multiple interests while working towards the National climate goals (Nationale Klimaatakkoord, 2019). -
Understanding restored forests for benefiting people and nature in the Atlantic Forest
05 December 2019 - Project - Large-scale forest and landscape restoration in the Atlantic Forest region of Brazil needs novel upscaling from thousands to millions of hectares. The NewFor project is part of NWO-FAPESP a large collaboration between Dutch and Brazilian partners that are investigating how to achieve this. -
A tropical mosaic of land-uses for ecosystem services
16 June 2017 - Project - In Latin America, cattle ranching is often practiced in tropical areas rich in cultural and biological diversity, creating a dynamic mosaic of forest patches and agricultural fields intermixed throughout the landscape.
Related dossiers
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Climate and forests
05 November 2015 - Dossier - There are more than 3 trillion trees on earth, that means there are about 422 trees per person. However, the total number of trees has almost been halved since the start of human civilization. Ecosystems with a long lifespan, like forests, are more vulnerable to the relatively quick changes of climate change. -
From soil to nutrition: micronutrients and heavy metals
09 February 2018 - Dossier - Sustainable production of sufficient food of good nutritional quality for a growing population at affordable prices is one of the major challenges the world is facing. Good nutritional quality means an adequate supply of essential vitamins and minerals, while limiting the uptake of toxic amounts of potentially harmful elements such as heavy metals and pesticides. This dossier focuses on the pathways of micronutrients and heavy metals from the soil through the crop and via food into the human body, and on the factors that influence their bio-availability to the next stage.