National Ecosystem Services Partnership

The National Ecosystem Services Partnership (NESP) engages both public and private individuals and organizations to enhance collaboration within the ecosystem services community and to strengthen coordination of policy and market implementation and research at the national level.

The partnership is an initiative of Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions and was developed with early support from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and with donations of expertise and time from a number of other public and private institutions.

The partnership is currently developing a work program with federal agencies to collaboratively develop guidance to make ecosystem services approaches to planning and management more routine and tractable for resource managers. The objective is to develop a framework with methods and metrics that are transparent, consistent and comparable at a national level yet can also be applied at local and regional scales with relevant region specific information added. More information can be found on theactivities page.

NESP has been engaged in the development of the Ecosystem Commons web portal by the Institute for Natural Resources at Oregon State University, and involved in planning for a number of the national meetings on ecosystem services including the Ecosystem Services Partnership, Ecosystem Service Markets and Community on Ecosystem Services (ACES) meetings.

For the most recent NESP news and activities, please see the activities page and the current NESP digest.

Please contact us if you would like to learn more about the Partnership or have questions or input.

Lydia Olander, Ph.D.
lydia.olander@duke.edu
919-613-8709

Abby Van de Bogert
abby.vandebogert@duke.edu
919-613-8742

Who is NESP?

The partnership is led by Lydia Olander, Director of the Ecosystem Services Program at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University, with the engagement and expertise of a wide variety of federal agency staff, academics, NGO leaders, and practitioners.

NESP Steering Group:

Nicole Balloffet, U.S. Forest Service, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Jim Boyd, Resources for the Future
Jessica Fox, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)
Todd Gartner or John Talberth, World Resources Institute (WRI)
Jenee Kresge, National Association of Regional Councils (NARC)
Pat Noonan, The Conservation Fund
Linwood Pendleton, Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University & National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Mary Ruckelshaus, The Natural Capital Project, Stanford University
Paul Sandifer, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Carl Shapiro and Frank Casey, United States Geological Survey (USGS)
Steve Swallow, University of Connecticut
Gary Tabor, Center for Large Landscape Conservation
Dean Urban, Duke University
Sara Vickerman, Defenders of Wildlife