Blockseminar The Politics of Ecosystem Services

Over the last couple of years, the concept of Ecosystem Services (ES) becomes a major topic in environmental research and policy making. Ecosystem Services denotes in general the benefits people obtain from functioning ecosystems. Developed to address the relevance of nature for societal welfare and human well-being, the concept raises high expectations in various sectors of policy-making. These rising expectations are mirrored by a rising amount of scientific publication in several fields of environmental research, from issues like biodiversity, nature conservation and land use to other topics like water governance etc. Thus, the complexity of research and policy making increases significantly and stimulates concern whether this new concept is really such a ‘silver bullet’ and whether it is able to fulfil the high expectations. These concerns are further stimulated by two interrelated challenges, which both address the use of the new concept in policy making. First, after several years of research there still exists no agreement in terms of definition and classification of ES. Various approaches emphasizes different characteristic of ecosystems and developed differing ways to approach the links between ecosystems, their services and human well-being. Secondly, and even more important, the concept is often criticized for is utilitarian and economic bias which contributes to the commodification of nature. Thus, it is in particular the use of the new concept at the interface between science and policy that create emerging debates and controversies. The course is dedicated to an introduction into these debates. It will first gives an overview about history and emergence of this concept and will introduce and discuss several related application processes (like the TEEB-process: The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity). It will then deal with some specific challenges of the concept like the stakeholder relationships, its role in policy making and the problem of commodification. Requirements: For participation in this course it is not required to have strong familiarity with the concept or other in-depth experiences with such debates at the interface between science and policy. Some previous knowledge about environmental policy making and their challenges however would be an advantage. FB 05 Gesellschaftswissenschaften Uni Kassel WiSe 2013/14 Global Political Economy Prof. Dr. Görg Christoph