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An Application of the Final Ecosystem Goods and Services Tool at Restoration Sites in Tillamook Bay
Citation:
Hernandez, ConnieL, C. Jackson, L. Sharpe, AND Ted DeWitt. An Application of the Final Ecosystem Goods and Services Tool at Restoration Sites in Tillamook Bay. National Conference on Ecosystem Restoration, NA, July 26 - August 05, 2021.
Impact/Purpose:
Framing ecological restoration and monitoring goals from a human benefits perspective (i.e., ecosystem services) will help inform restoration planners and surrounding communities on the direct human benefits of the restoration. The goal of this presentation is to continue to disseminate the applicability and use of the Final Ecosystem Goods and Services (FEGS) Scoping Tool (FST) to identify the shared values amongst the suite of stakeholders in the decision-making process. The FST provides a transparent and replicable approach to reconciling different priorities into a final set of shared goals that can inform the restoration project goal-setting, design, and monitoring. This work will help utilize ecosystem services concepts in early stages of restoration planning practices to better connect restoration goals to community values. The methodology of the FST is transferrable to other ecosystems in which any number of stakeholder and interests need to be considered in a decision-making context.
Description:
Stakeholders may have different priorities regarding the purpose or goals for restoring specific sites (or areas), particularly regarding the benefits that the restoration might provide to them or the communities they represent. Prior to initiating the actual restoration work, those different priorities must be reconciled into a final set of shared goals around which the restoration project design and monitoring are developed. In many cases, those goals are expressions of final ecosystem goods and services (FEGS) which are those biophysical attributes of nature that people directly use, appreciate, or enjoy – such as charismatic wildlife for recreational experiencers and viewers, property protection for residents, and edible fauna for hunters and anglers. The FEGS Scoping Tool (FST) can be used by restoration practitioners for a particular decision (e.g., a restoration design) to identify those FEGS valued by the suite of stakeholders involved in that decision, and the beneficiaries (individuals or groups) that those FEGS speak directly to. Using a structured approach to identify FEGS and beneficiaries can help restoration practitioners focus on common interests that can build toward shared restoration goals and help with identifying relevant ecosystem service attributes to include in restoration design and measure during pre- and post-remediation monitoring. We will demonstrate an application of the FST in Tillamook Bay, OR where we worked with restoration planners from Tillamook Bay’s National Estuary Partnership. We used the tool to determine how restoration goals and monitoring metrics could be linked to FEGS most relevant to local stakeholders. This allowed for an evaluation of restoration performance that can be communicated in terms of locally relevant final ecosystem goods. This transparent and replicable approach can be useful for restoration planners when selecting environmental attributes to be incorporated into restoration goals. It is transferrable across a wide range of environmental decision contexts in which it is important to consider various, complex stakeholder interests and restoration engineering options. This flexibility also allows for the FST to be easily adaptable from small- to large-scale restoration projects both in size/extent of the project and number of stakeholders involved.