United Nations Statistical Commission

The SEEA Experimental Ecosystem Accounting provides a coherent and integrated approach to the measurement of ecosystems and the flows of services from them into economic and other human activity. It complements and builds on, the accounting for environmental assets as described in the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) Central Framework by building an accounting framework that recognises that the individual resources (environmental assets) function in combination within a broader system. The SEEA Experimental Ecosystem Accounting provides the conceptual framework for the integration of information on ecosystem extent, ecosystem condition, ecosystem services and ecosystem capacity, with information on economic and other human activity and the associated beneficiaries (households, businesses and governments).

The increased recognition of the importance of ecosystem services in human and economic activity has led the development of the statistical framework for the integration of ecosystem and economic information to support of mainstreaming information on ecosystems within public and private decision making. The Statistical Commission at its 44th session “welcomed the SEEA Experimental Ecosystem Accounting as an important first step in the development of a statistical framework for ecosystem accounting and encouraged its use by international and regional agencies and countries wishing to test and experiment in this new area of statistics”.

As a result, many countries have started experimenting with the SEEA Experimental Ecosystem Accounting. As a result of the experience gained as well as advances in methodology, technical recommendations on the implementation of SEEA Experimental Ecosystem Accounting were prepared and have undergone broad consultations among the statistics, scientific, geospatial and economic communities. The recommendations provide a range of content to support testing and research on ecosystem accounting and present the latest thinking on ecosystem accounting.

The objective of the panel discussion is to share country experience on the implementation of the SEEA Experimental Ecosystem Accounting and demonstrate that SEEA Experimental Ecosystem Accounting can be implemented at different scales, using available data starting from the compilation of land cover/land use accounts and overlaying it with available environmental and economic information. The inter-disciplinary nature of the implementation of ecosystem accounting calls for institutional coordination in particular with the geospatial and environmental communities. The panel discussion will present the results of pilot projects and challenges in implementation.

Chair:

• Mr. Ivo Havinga, Assistant Director Economic Statistics, United Nations Statistics Division
  • Presentation

Speakers:

• Mr. Rolando Ocampo, Vice-President of Geographical Information and Environment, INEGI, Mexico
  • Presentation
• Mr. Roberto Olinto Ramos, Director of Research, Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE)
  • Presentation
• Mr. Pali Lehohla, Statistician General, Statistics South Africa
  • Presentation
• Mr. Bert Kroese, Deputy Director General, Statistics Netherlands, and Chair, United Nations Committee of Experts on Environmental-Economic Accounting
  • Presentation