An ecosystem services approach to comply with international lending standards for large international projects: The human aspect

Background/Question/Methods

A precedent -setting framework of classifying and analyzing Ecosystem Services was developed based on World Bank (International Finance Corporation) Performance Standard 6 (PS 6), including guidance for PS 6 guidance published in January 2012. The incorporation of ecosystem services is a recent requirement for development of an Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA).  Other chapters within the ESIA structure cover social and economic impacts; water; community and public health; and other aspects of ecosystem service benefits to humans.  However the new approach draws attention to multiple ecosystem services that benefit humans, and demonstrates the linkages between impacts across the many other chapters of the ESIA and ecosystem service losses.  The new framework also demonstrates that without a separate ecosystem service analysis, specific ecosystem services could be overlooked in the otherwise comprehensive ESIA.

The basic methodology included:

• Review other ESIA analyses,
• Complete an ecosystem services review,
• Collect additional information on potentially significant ecosystem services,
• Determine level of impact by evaluating relevance to affected population and availability of substitute services,
• An estimate of significance of potentially overlapping impacts,
• Development of monitoring and mitigation plans.

Results/Conclusions

Additional information collected shows that potentially significant services such as fuelwood, provision of water for pasture, and medicinal and household plant use might be affected by such a project, and that previous efforts to document these service losses might not be captured in other analyses of the ESIA. Such services were analyzed on the context of the numbers of people using the service through time with, and without the project in place.  The analysis provides a comprehensive way to:

 

• Understand tradeoffs between conflicting uses of resources (e.g. pasture for wildlife, pasture cattle),
• Identify all uses of the natural environment, including those that are not paid for in market systems,
• Interact with local communities to address needs,
• Address concerns of project stakeholders and opponents, and
• Provide an holistic presentation of multiple environmental issues.