Published Sunday, 13 February 2011
Initiating a TEEB Assessment for the Nordic Countries
IEEP and the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) join forces to explore the economics of ecosystems and biodiversity in the Nordic countries. TEEB Nordic - an assessment of the state and economics of the key ecosystem services in the Nordic Countries - will be initiated in March and it will build on the global TEEB assessment launched in the meeting of the UN Convention of Biological Diversity in Nagoya in October last year. The project is funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers (NCM) and it will be carried out in the context of the Finnish Presidency of NCM in 2011.
The objective of TEEB Nordic is to carry
out a preliminary assessment of the socio-economic role and significance
of biodiversity and ecosystem services for the Nordic countries (ie
Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden).
The project
aims to:
- identify the most important ecosystem services maintained by healthy, well-functioning ecosystems and biodiversity in the Nordic context
- compile and synthesise existing information on the present state, trends, possible threats and economic importance of these services
- explore the possibilities to apply the different approaches and tools for integrating the real value of nature into the decision-making processes in the Nordic context.
It is hoped that TEEB Nordic will complement the global TEEB initiative with interesting insights from the Nordic countries and also help to pave the way towards further and more in-depth TEEB assessment at regional and national level.