Sustainable poverty alleviation from coastal ecosystem services (SPACES): Investigating elasticities, feedbacks and tradeoffs

该项目旨在更好地了解生态系统服务与福祉之间的联系，以便设计和实施更有效的扶贫干预措施。我们是在肯尼亚和莫桑比克这两个贫穷的非洲国家的沿海社会生态系统的背景下进行这项工作的。尽管最近对生态系统的政策和科学感兴趣，但关于生态系统如何真正促进福祉，从而减轻贫困，仍然存在重要的知识差距。根据ESPA框架，区分生态过程、“最终生态系统”、“资本投入”、“商品”和“价值”，该项目关注这些要素如何相互关联以产生可持续发展效益，并特别关注如何分配这些效益以(潜在地)惠及穷人，增进他们的福祉。因此，我们解决了ESPA的目标，即了解和促进如何增加对最贫穷者的好处，使更多的人能够满足他们的基本需求，但我们也确定了相互冲突的权衡，即那些对生态系统或穷人造成严重损害且需要紧急关注的权衡。目前，国际科学和政策论坛正在辩论几个基本问题，这些问题涉及四个可能影响穷人获得惠益的主要全球趋势：(1)管理权的下放及其对生态系统地方治理和生态系统生产的影响，(2)前所未有的环境变化，特别是气候变化的速度和规模，这些因素包括：(1)造成新的脆弱性、机会和制约，‘改变基线’，并要求彻底改变行为以应对；(3)市场一体化现在到达发展中世界最偏远的角落，改变人与资源之间的关系以及自然资源管理的动机；(4)社会变化，包括人口、人口、城市化和文化的全球化，与环境建立新的关系，进一步使人们摆脱对特定资源的直接依赖。选择研究地点是为了收集经验证据，以帮助回答关于这四个变化驱动因素如何影响贫困人口从环境保护中受益的关键问题。我们的目标是直接影响莫桑比克和肯尼亚快速转型沿海地区贫困居民的福祉，并将在那里进行研究，同时通过我们的国际影响战略为其他发展中国家的沿海贫困人口提供间接影响。不同层面的多个利益攸关方也将从研究成果中获益。地方政府、非政府组织和民间社会团体--通过参与项目活动，例如参加研讨会和接触新型分析和系统思考--通过研究提供证据，为支持部门发展的战略(例如渔业、沿海规划和旅游业发展)提供信息，并通过各种方法了解和评估不同发展干预措施的影响--例如通过权衡分析和评价生态系统服务与福祉之间的弹性。国际科学界--通过会议、科学出版物(开放获取)传播研究结果，通过概念和理论发展以及对生态系统服务与福祉之间多重联系的新理解。非洲区域科学家将通过在项目范围内提供的公开课和在区域场所传播成果而具体受益。我们的影响和收益战略包括(1)在正在进行的沿海发展进程中确定“机会之窗”，以改善从生态系统服务中获得的惠益流向穷人，以及(2)确定并积极寻求缓解肯尼亚和莫桑比克的“冲突”权衡。

This project aims to better understand the links between ecosystem services (ES) and wellbeing in order to design and implement more effective interventions for poverty alleviation. We do this in the context of coastal, social-ecological systems in two poor African countries; Kenya and Mozambique.Despite recent policy and scientific interest in ES, there remain important knowledge gaps regarding how ecosystems actually contribute to wellbeing, and thus poverty alleviation. Following the ESPA framework, distinguishing ecological processes, 'final ES', 'capital inputs', 'goods' and 'values', this project is concerned with how these elements are interrelated to produce ES benefits, and focuses specifically on how these benefits are distributed to (potentially) benefit the poor, enhancing their wellbeing. We thus address the ESPA goal of understanding and promoting ways in which benefits to the poorest can be increased and more people can meet their basic needs, but we also identify conflicted tradeoffs, i.e. those which result in serious harm to either the ecosystem or poor people and which need urgent attention.Several fundamental questions are currently debated in international scientific and policy fora, relating to four major global trends which are likely to affect abilities of poor people to access ES benefits: (1) devolution of governance power and its impacts on local governance of ecosystems and production of ES, (2) unprecedented rates and scales of environmental change, particularly climate change, which are creating new vulnerabilities, opportunities and constraints, 'shifting baselines', and demanding radical changes in behaviour to cope, (3) market integration now reaches the most remote corners of the developing world, changing relationships between people and resources and motivations for natural resource management, (4) societal changes, including demographic, population, urbanisation and globalisation of culture, forge new relationships with ES and further decouple people from direct dependency on particular resources. Study sites have been chosen so as to gather empirical evidence to help answer key questions about how these four drivers of change affect abilities of poor people to benefit from ES.We aim for direct impact on the wellbeing of poor inhabitants of the rapidly transforming coastal areas in Mozambique and Kenya, where research will take place, while also providing indirect impact to coastal poor in other developing countries through our international impact strategy. Benefits from research findings will also accrue to multiple stakeholders at various levels. Local government, NGOs and civil society groups - through engagement with project activities, e.g. participation in workshops and exposure to new types of analysis and systems thinking.Donor organizations and development agencies - through research providing evidence to inform strategies to support sector development (e.g. fisheries, coastal planning and tourism development) and methods to understand and evaluate impacts of different development interventions - e.g. through tradeoff analysis and evaluation of the elasticities between ecosystem services and wellbeing.International scientific community - through dissemination of findings via conferences, scientific publications (open access), and from conceptual and theoretical development and new understandings of the multiple linkages between ecosystem services and wellbeing. Regional African scientists will benefit specifically through open courses offered within the scope of the project, and through dissemination of results at regional venues.Our strategies to deliver impact and benefits include (1) identifying 'windows of opportunity' within the context of ongoing coastal development processes to improve flows of benefits from ecosystems services to poor people, and (2) identifying and seeking to actively mitigate 'conflicted' tradeoffs in Kenya and Mozambique.