OpenNess highlighted at recent Ecosystem Service Community Scotland meeting

OpennESS was well represented at the ecosystem service community of Scotland (ESCOM) meeting in Edinburgh by three keynote speakers. Allan Watt, CEH, highlighted in the Uptake and Evaluation session the link between Scotland and Europe and Andy Wells, Crown Estate presented the integrated valuation work conducted in Glenlivet Estate from the business perspective. Esther Carmen was also a key note speaker in the Knowledge and Decision Support session reporting on the 'knowledge needs - moving from the conceptual to practice'.

The ESCOM community is an emerging initiative that supports collaboration between science, policy and practice to better manage Scotland’s natural resources and grew from the collaboration of OpenNESS, OPERAs, Greensurge and Scottish Government ecosystem service funded research.

The ESCom Conference took place 7-8 May 2015 in Edinburgh and aimed to provide:

• An overview of ecosystem services activities in Scotland
• Networking opportunities between science, policy and practice
• An update of the ESCom governance and future ambitions
• Opportunities to explore synergies, plan collaborations, and future events

http://escom.scot/conference2015

Photo (below): Ester Carmen speech about knowledge needs informing tools, methods & outputs, © ESCom Scotland

Photo (top): Inspiring talk by Andy Wells highlighted business benefits of considering ecosystem services, © Jonathan Porter