Meetings and Webinars
Unpacking England’s ‘Biodiversity Net Gain’ Law: A New Approach to Development
One of the largest threats to biodiversity worldwide is development and associated land use change. A new law in England went into effect in early 2024, aiming to ensure that habitats for wildlife are left in a measurably better state than they were before development occurred.
Join this webinar to learn about how the law came to be, including the concept development, timeline, barriers, breakthroughs, and eventual implementation. Organized by the National Ecosystem Services Partnership (NESP) and Environmental Policy Innovation Center (EPIC).
New U.S. Army Corps Rule, New Possibilities for Water Resources Projects
Earlier this year, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) released a proposed rule that establishes updated agency specific procedures (ASPs) for how the Corps' Principles, Requirements, and Guidelines are implemented. In this informational webinar from the National Ecosystem Services Partnership, panelists will explore how and why the updated ASPs came to be, the implications of the ASP update for water resource projects, and how USACE project partners expect to be able to leverage the updated rule to better provide multibenefit projects.
State and Regional Programs Supporting Natural Climate Solutions
Governments are beginning to promote and incentivize natural climate solutions as one of the important ways to address the climate crisis. The latest session of the Nature-Based Solutions: Current Issues webinar series will spotlight two such government programs in the United States—the Massachusetts Forests as Climate Solutions Initiative and the Regional Climate Protection Authority in Sonoma County, California.
NESP Webinar: New White House Guidance on Accounting for Ecosystem Services in Benefit-Cost Analysis
The National Ecosystem Services Partnership (NESP) invites those interested in ecosystem services and nature-based solutions to a webinar on August 23. Attendees will hear from speakers involved in newly released White House draft guidance from the Executive Office of the President on accounting for ecosystems services in benefit-cost analysis.
The Nature-Based Solutions Roadmap for the United States
In November, the Biden-Harris administration released a roadmap for unlocking the potential of nature-based solutions in the United States. In the fourth session of the Nature-Based Solutions: Current Issues webinar series, hear from two authors of the roadmap, as well as federal agency representatives.
Federal Cost-Benefit Analysis Policies for Evaluating Nature-Based Solutions
US federal agencies use cost-benefit analysis (CBA) to make decisions about the types of infrastructure projects to implement. In the third session of the Nature-Based Solutions: Current Issues webinar series, experts working with the federal government discuss how these policies might be updated to enable more nature-based solutions projects.
Financing Mechanisms for Nature-Based Solutions Projects
One of the major hurdles keeping NbS projects from scaling up is finding ways to pay for them. This session, the second of the Nature-based Solutions: Current Issues webinar series, highlights insights about various mechanisms that can be used to pay for NbS, including state and federal policies and programs, as well as finance tools.
How Does Nature Measure Up? Innovative Examples of Cost-Benefit Analysis of Nature-Based Solutions
Session one of the Nature-based Solutions: Current Issues webinar series focuses on assessing the costs and benefits of NbS. How can we account for all the benefits NbS provide? How do they compare to more traditional (gray infrastructure) solutions? What is the return on investment for NbS?
Policy Applications of Natural Capital Accounts in the U.S.
In this National Ecosystem Services Partnership (NESP) webinar, hear about three examples of policy applications for Natural Capital Accounts (NCA) from Carter Ingram (The Pollination Group), Eli Fenichel (Office of Science and Technology Policy), and Kirsten Oleson (University of Hawai'i).
Piloting Natural Capital Accounts for the United States
Natural capital accounting provides a way to integrate the value of ecosystem services into national economic reporting systems and is increasingly being adopted around the world.
Global Earth-Economy Modeling: Linking GTAP and InVEST to address sustainability challenges
In this National Ecosystem Services Partnership (NESP) webinar, Justin Johnson (University of Minnesota) will present recent work completed with the World Bank that lays out a new model, GTAP-InVEST, that links a computable general equilibrium model from the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) with an ecosystem services model, Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST), to assess important sustainability challenges.
Payments for forest-based ecosystem services from private lands in the United States
In this National Ecosystem Services Partnership (NESP) webinar, hear from Gregory Frey at the U.S. Forest Service, who will present on an effort to account, estimate, and document the full extent of direct payments for ecosystem services to private forest landowners in the United States. This includes payments derived from markets, subsidies, and hybrid approaches, from both governmental and non-governmental sources.
Different methods, different values: How the choice of ecosystem service valuation methods can affect cost-benefit analysis and prioritization decisions
In this National Ecosystem Services Partnership (NESP) webinar, hear from Bonnie Keeler (University of Minnesota) for a presentation that will synthesize the results of over a decade of ecosystem services valuation work in the U.S. state of Minnesota.
Equity and Ecosystem Services Webinar - Part 2
By linking nature and people, ecosystem services can be a valuable tool for understanding racial and social justice around natural resource management and environmental degradation. There is no easy recipe for integrating equity in ecosystem services work, but hearing about different ways that people have addressed the interplay between equity and ecosystem services can help us all to think more critically about inequities in our work related to who benefits from ecosystem services, how decisions are made about managing ecosystem services, and what services are prioritized.
Equity and Ecosystem Services Webinar - Part 1
By linking nature and people, ecosystem services can be a valuable tool for understanding racial and social justice around natural resource management and environmental degradation. There is no easy recipe for integrating equity in ecosystem services work, but hearing about different ways that people have addressed the interplay between equity and ecosystem services can help us all to think more critically about inequities in our work related to who benefits from ecosystem services, how decisions are made about managing ecosystem services, and what services are prioritized.
NESP Ecosystem Services Toolkit Tour
The National Ecosystem Services Partnership (NESP) was formed over a decade ago to create a national network for sharing ecosystem services information, to establish pathways for implementation of ecosystem services concepts, and to help integrate ecosystem services information into decision-making.
Piloting Ecosystem Accounts for the Southeastern U.S.
Hear from Ken Bagstad (USGS), Katie Warnell (Duke University), Charles Rhodes (TBD Economics), and Marc Russell (US EPA) about "Testing ecosystem accounting in the United States: A case study for the Southeast" [DOI link] that details the first effort to develop Ecosystem Accounts for the U.S. at a broad scale. The team will describe the potential for U.S.
Ecosystem Service Assessments at Three National Wildlife Refuges: Methods, Results, and Lessons
In the next National Ecosystem Services Partnership (NESP) webinar, hear from Emily Pindilli, an economist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), about the USGS LandCarbon program’s in-depth ecosystem service assessments at three different National Wildlife Refuges.
Interpreting the IPBES Global Assessment
In the next National Ecosystem Services Partnership (NESP) webinar on Thursday, August 1, at 2 p.m. ET, report co-authors Alex Pfaff from the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, and Stephen Polasky from the Department of Applied Economics at University of Minnesota, will present an interpretation of the report contents and its implications.
Exploring Applications of Ecosystem Service Conceptual Models for Coastal Habitats
Dr. Lydia Olander and Sara Mason of Duke University will share their approach to using Ecosystem Services Conceptual Models as a framework to think about ecosystem services and how they can be considered within the National Estuarine Research Reserve System.