Harold A. Mooney | Search USGS

USGS2020

The IPBES global assessment: Pathways to action

The first Global Assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services found widespread, accelerating declines in Earth’s biodiversity and associated benefits to people from nature. Addressing these trends will require science-based policy responses to reduce impacts, especially at national to local scales. Effective scaling of science-policy efforts driven by global and national assessments is a major challenge for turning assessment into action, and will require unprecedented commitments on the part of scientists to engage with communities of policy and practice. Fulfillment of science’s social contract with society, and with nature, will require strong institutional support for scientists’ participation in activities that transcend conventional research and publication.

Trends in Ecology and Evolution↗

USGS2016

Toward a national, sustained U.S. ecosystem assessment

The massive investment of resources devoted to monitoring and assessment of economic and societal indicators in the United States is neither matched by nor linked to efforts to monitor and assess the ecosystem services and biodiversity that support economic and social well-being. Although national-scale assessments of biodiversity ( 1 ) and ecosystem indicators ( 2 ) have been undertaken, nearly a decade has elapsed since the last systematic assessment ( 2 ). A 2011 White House report called for a national biodiversity and ecosystem services assessment ( 3 ), but the initiative has stalled. Our aim here is to stimulate the process and outline a credible framework and pathway for an ongoing assessment of ecosystem functioning (see the photo). A national assessment should engage diverse stakeholders from multiple sectors of society and should focus on metrics and analyses of direct relevance to policy decisions, from local to national levels. Although many technical or science-focused components are in place, they need to be articulated, distilled, and organized to address policy issues.

Science↗