3rd Thematic Work Package

Carpathian Ecosystem Services Toolkit

The Carpathians are one of the Europe’s largest biodiversity pools and one of the most intensively exploited mountain ranges. To protect this natural capital, interdisciplinary and international cooperation is needed to accomplish a significant state of ecological networks implementation and Ecosystem Services (ESS) assessment. This work package, lead by the State Nature Conservancy of the Slovak Republic, aims to provide possible answers on how to deal with the driving forces of the development process strategy of the Carpathian Convention, which calls for innovative and consensual solutions.

Ecosystem Services are complex and interrelated ecological systems that support life and local development recalling attention on how people depend on a healthy environment for different purposes. Biodiversity is an essential component of ESS, therefore needing a more comprehensive approach to address decisions involving or impinging on ecosystems that may lead to human well-being reduction through ESS loss. Within the Centralparks project, a Thematic Transnational Task Force on Carpathian Ecosystem Services is established, involving experts from all Carpathian countries.

The ESS assessment approach provided by this work package will be able to cover this need an to inform policymakers and management practitioners. In this regards, Romanian partner will share the long-term experience in ESS management and provide sound examples of study cases from Romanian protected Areas. The developed Carpathian Ecosystem Services Toolkit will be based on related existing ESS assesments related to many issues, especially area-based planning, regulatory decision analysis, environmental damages assessment and management. The elaboration of the toolkit will be a collective work of experts in ESS and decision-making processes, consulted with relevant stakeholders and will provide a practical, step-by-step guide for further understanding and direction. It will be published in English and will be available online.