Options for the Ocean: Scientific Insights for Decision Makers

COMPASS brought together scientists and policy makers for a lunchtime dialogue to explore how the latest scientific insights and tools related to ecosystem services might inform the Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning process underway as part of the new National Ocean Policy (NOP).

Laura Cantral (Meridian Institute) moderated the briefing and discussion, which was timed to take advantage of the wealth of the scientific expertise in Washington, DC for the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting. Policymakers for federal agencies working directly on the implementation of the NOP participated in the discussion.

Four speakers presented short, provocative talks that offered complementary pieces of ecosystem service science to inform NOP implementation (see one-pagers, below). Heather Leslie (Brown University), Larry Crowder (Duke University and Stanford University), and Don Boesch (University of Maryland) provided additional perspectives on the panel.

• Heather Tallis (Natural Capital Project, Stanford University) presented a conceptual model of how ecosystem services flow to people, and provided a new framework to consolidate the disparate approaches currently taken to describe and use ecosystem services in decision making.
• Steve Gaines (University of California at Santa Barbara) followed with an explanation of how tradeoff analysis can be used to evaluate the relative impacts of different combinations of ocean uses (or non-uses), illustrating how this approach makes it possible to defuse conflict by identifying options that may be acceptable to a wider range of stakeholders. 
• Doug Lipton (University of Maryland) presented a case study from the Chesapeake Bay to show how an ecosystem service framework had guided the Environmental Impact Statement process for the potential introduction of a non-native oyster, helping to shape the policy decision not to introduce the non-native species. 
• Anne Guerry (Natural Capital Project, Stanford University) concluded the remarks with an explanation of how a new freely available software tool, InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs), could be used to develop coastal and marine spatial plans. She offered examples for how it has already been implemented on Vancouver Island and in Belize.