Increasingly in Alberta, land use planning views landscapes from the perspective
of the ecological services they provide. We are seeing these 'Ecosystem Services'
playing an ever-increasing role in decision making related to industrial development,
conservation tools, agri-environmental business, regional planning, private land
conservation, and a host of other circumstances. However, our understanding of
how to value landscapes from an ecosystem services perspective is limited. Perhaps
more importantly, we struggle without a 'shared' view across sectors on how to
approach this challenge. Working with the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute,
Miistakis has embarked on an exploratory project to understand what are the characteristics
of an effective decision support system (DSS) for land use decisions in an ecosystem
services context. Over the next several months, we will be contacting several
of our partners to get their views on this topic, and would welcome any input
you may have. A second phase will explore the potential for creating such a tool.
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