Scientific Lecture: The Concept and Reality of Ecosystem Services

Presentation: The Concept and Reality of Ecosystem Services (PDF, 1.66 MB)

Neville Ash is Head of the IUCN Ecosystem Management Programme, where he provides leadership for IUCN on the programmes of work on Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction. He also supports the work of IUCN across a variety of ecosystem-scale biodiversity issues, with a focus on the interactions between global change, ecosystems and people. Neville was previously Head of Ecosystem Assessment at UNEP-WCMC, where he worked on a variety of international assessment initiatives, including the Global Environmental Outlook and Global Biodiversity Outlook assessments.

He established the international partnership process to track changes in biodiversity towards the 2010 biodiversity target of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the MDGs, and had a leading role in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), including through co-editing the MA Status and Trends Assessment Report focussing on the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being.  

He is currently involved in a range of biodiversity, climate and ecosystem science and policy initiatives, including consultations over the establishment of the proposed Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, and co-chairs the bioDISCOVERY core project of DIVERSITAS, an international biodiversity science network. He has a degree in Zoology and Genetics and a postgraduate degree in Conservation Biology.