Operationalising ecosystem service approaches for governance: Do measuring, mapping and valuing integrate sector-specific knowledge systems?

The scientific community is working on ways to identify different ecosystem services and to bring them on par to allow tradeoff analysis and inform targeting of policies. However, those ultimately governing ecosystem services continue to base their decisions on traditional knowledge production segregated to specific habitats, ecosystems, geographical areas and sectors. The aim of our paper is to tackle the challenges of the transition from sector governance to a more integrated model of ecosystem service governance by building on existing governance arrangements geared towards sustainability. To examine the uptake of ecosystem service approaches, we review published material and conduct secondary analysis of how ecosystem services are identified, measured, mapped and valued in three Finnish real-world governance settings. The governance settings of voluntary biodiversity conservation, urban planning and natural resource strategies show that, at a qualitative level, identifying a broad range of ecosystem services is easy and appealing but cross-comparison and tradeoff analysis face challenges. The analysis demonstrates that measuring all services is impossible and faces difficulties where the services fall between traditional sectoral boundaries. Measuring and valuing services does not directly lead to increased use of this knowledge. We conclude that the mismatch between the governance needs and the ecosystem service paradigm can be closed only if the tools are developed so that they build on existing knowledge systems and governance arrangements but aim at communicating across ecosystem and sector boundaries.