SEMINAR: "A cutting-age toolkit for measuring and monitoring ecosystem services at the site-scale."

Information on ecosystem services has often been unavailable at the site scale, where most land-use decisions are made. Thus there is an urgent need for simple, and yet robust protocols for assessing ecosystem services that are adaptable to a wide range of sites, are replicable over time, and are accessible to decision-making process. In response to this challenge I have co-developed a practical 'toolkit' (Toolkit for Ecosystem Service Site-based Assessment; TESSA) that provides easy-to-follow instructions on how to collect the data needed for five main services. These methods allow the user to assess whether conservation (or restoration) of a site is likely to deliver greater benefits than its conversion to a plausible alternative land-use, and who is likely to be affected. This toolkit has the potential to inform decision-making, to substantially increase our understanding of how land-use changes impact ecosystem services, and, where conversion of a site would diminish benefits to people, to broaden arguments in support of its conservation. These methods are also designed to be suitable for repeated and regular application to allow trends in the delivery of ecosystem services to be determined, thus providing important information for tracking progress towards internationally agreed targets for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services by 2020.