The Chair of Ecosystem Services introduces itself
The Chair of Ecosystem Services was set up at IHI Zittau in 2016 and is headed by Prof. Dr. Irene Ring. At the Chair, an international team of researchers focuses on biodiversity and ecosystem governance and the assessment of ecosystem services (e.g., Tiemann and Ring 2022) in order to better reflect nature conservation, biodiversity and ecosystem services in private and public decision-making. Inter- and transdisciplinary research at the Chair is oriented towards the overarching concept of sustainable development.
One of our main tasks is the coordination of the international Master's program Ecosystem Services. This program was established in 2016, combining the natural and social sciences expertise of the International Institute (IHI) Zittau and the Faculty of Environmental Sciences at TU Dresden, the Senckenberg Museum of Natural History in Görlitz, and the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IÖR) in Dresden.
The disciplinary focus is on economics, in particular public finance, ecological economics, environmental and institutional economics. At the same time, a number of our team members do have competencies in forestry and resource management, geography, landscape and geoecology. In our projects, we closely cooperate with ecologists, environmental and other social scientists. This also applies to our current BMBF-funded collaborative projects MORE STEP and TeichLausitz, where we contribute with our expertise.
A long-standing research focus lies at the interface of public finance, environmental economics and ecology, devoted to the consideration of nature conservation, biodiversity and ecosystem services in intergovernmental fiscal transfers. In our research on ecological fiscal transfers, we collaborate with international partners from Brazil, Portugal, France, Poland, Mongolia and Indonesia (Busch et al. 2021).
At the interface of science and policy, Irene Ring was Coordinating Lead Author in the IPBES Regional Assessment on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services for Europe and Central Asia, while Ulan Kasymov contributed as Lead Author with his expertise on Central Asia (IPBES 2018; Ring et al. 2018; Sandström et al. 2023).
Busch, J., Ring, I., Akullo, M., Amarjargal, O., Borie, M., Cassola, R.S., Cruz-Trinidad, A., Droste, N., Haryanto, J.T., Kasymov, U., Kotenko, N.V., Lhkagvadorj, A., Lima de Paulo, F.L., May, P.H., Mukherjee, A., Mumbunan, S., Santos, R., Tacconi, L., Verde Selva, G., Verma, M., Wang, X., Yu, L., Zhou, K. (2021): A global review of ecological fiscal transfers. Nature Sustainability 4, 756–765. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00728-0
IPBES (2018): Summary for policymakers of the regional assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services for Europe and Central Asia of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Fischer, M., Rounsevell, M., Torre-Marin Rando, A., Mader, A., Church, A., Elbakidze, M., Elias, V., Hahn, T., Harrison, P.A., Hauck, J., Martín-López, B., Ring, I., Sandström, C., Sousa Pinto, I., Visconti, P., Zimmermann, N.E., Christie, M. (eds.). IPBES Secretariat, Bonn, Germany, 48 p. Available at https://www.ipbes.net/assessment-reports/eca.
Ring, I., Sandström, C., Acar, S., Adeishvili, M., Albert, C., Allard, C., Anker, Y., Arlettaz, R., Bela, G., ten Brink, B., Fischer, A., Fürst, C., Galil, B., Hynes, S., Kasymov, U., Marta-Pedroso, C., Mendes, A., Molau, U., Olschewski, R., Pergl, J., Simoncini, R. (2018): Chapter 6: Options for governance and decision-making across scales and sectors. In: IPBES: The IPBES regional assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services for Europe and Central Asia. Rounsevell, M., Fischer, M., Torre-Marin Rando, A., Mader, A. (eds.). Secretariat of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, Bonn, Germany, pp. 661-802. Available at https://www.ipbes.net/assessment-reports/eca
Sandström, C., Ring, I., Olschewski, R., Simoncini, R., Albert, C.,….Kasymov, U., et al. (2023): Mainstreaming biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people in Europe and Central Asia: insights from IPBES to inform the CBD post-2020 agenda. Ecosystems and People, Vol. 19: 1, 2138553, https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2022.2138553
Tiemann, A., Ring, I. (2022): Towards ecosystem service assessment: Developing biophysical indicators for forest ecosystem services. Ecological Indicators 137, 108704