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Theme 7: restoration and preservation of coastal biodiversity: ecological valuationCoordinators
Theme 7 on the restoration and preservation of coastal biodiversity aims at establishing a strategy to provide an integrated view on nature’s intrinsic value. Biological value is here defined as the value of biodiversity, without any reference to anthropogenic use. As such, the biological value complements the social and economic valuation (Theme 1) within DSSs.Till now, when requested, the biological value of an area was basically assessed through an unguided procedure, primarily based upon a (the available) best expert judgement. Such extremely subjective and arbitrarily procedure largely contributed to the general ignorance of biological value within current DSSs. Our marine biological valuation strategy, in contrary, should ideally be (1) scientifically widely acceptable, to avoid an uncontrolled proliferation of valuation strategies (i.e. broad scientific support), and (2) widely applicable, to maximise its applicability (e.g. stakeholder involvement). Only when both criteria are fulfilled, the valuation strategy might be taken into DSSs to quantify nature’s intrinsic value.
Theme specific issues:
- During a first environmental scientists workshop, the already existing, national and international strategies for the ecological valuation of the terrestrial as well as the marine part of the coastal zone will be used as a baseline for setting the protocol for European ecological valuation in the coastal environment.
- A selected set of case studies along the European gradients in biogeography, in knowledge (well- versus poorly known) and in preservation (e.g. preserved, restored and degraded systems) will be used to evaluate the applicability of the protocol and will thus render information necessary to upgrade the protocol (this can be done during a second environmental scientists workshop.
- Stakeholders in the European coastal zone will be invited to test the usefulness of the protocol for European Ecological Valuation, rendering information needed to finalize the protocol into a final ecological valuation protocol during the concluding environmental scientists workshop.
Activities:
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