Ecosystem services (ES) are essential for maintaining the basic quality of life of society and promote economic development. Although this is a recognizedly relevant approach to development, there are few practical examples of its integration into municipal public policies, and therefore it remains a challenge for them to be considered in local planning and management processes.

Representatives from the municipalities of Campinas (SP), Florianópolis (SC), João Pessoa (PB), Niterói (RJ), Porto Alegre (RS), and Salvador (BA) participated in the training course “Integration of Ecosystem Services into Development Planning,” offered between January 14 and 16 in Brasília (DF), whose objective was to provide an appropriate tool to identify, evaluate, and integrate ecosystem services into the decision-making of municipal governments.

Professionals from six Brazilian cities, most of which are part of the ICLEI Network, were trained in the methods and tools of the ISE approach (here in English), as well as exchanging experiences on the main challenges in the management of Conservation Units (CUs) and Other Area-Based Conservation Measures (OEMs).

For Sueli Thomazielli, from the Secretariat of Green Areas, Environment and Sustainable Development of Campinas, The ecosystem services approach greatly helps communication with stakeholders, such as local landowners, council members, and communities living in protected areas, as a lack of dialogue has been a major obstacle to the management of these areas in the municipality.

“In a highly urbanized city, which has many priority areas to conserve, there are many risks, and one way to address this is by creating incentives. For Salvador, the training was a way to see that through ecosystem services we can open up this range of incentives, so that the population itself can reverse this situation of degradation in urban areas,” added Lucineide de Jesus Teixeira, from the Sustainable City Secretariat. Salvador.

For the In the municipality of João Pessoa, the training allowedTo identify the potential and real value of protected areas, as well as to understand the importance of communicating the need to protect these areas to the population, managers, and other stakeholders. “Furthermore, it was an excellent opportunity to strengthen dialogue directly with all the bodies involved in the CNUC and address the difficulties faced by the municipality when it has other protected areas that are not included in the SNUC,” added Carolina Cigerza de Camargo, advisor to the João Pessoa Environment Secretariat.,

“The great achievement was identifying daily opportunities and seeking ways to explore this interaction between the population and the protected areas, respecting the limitations of the legislation according to the different classifications of the protected areas, but at the same time fostering a sense of belonging so that the population calls on the governments to take responsibility for caring for these areas,” highlighted Luize Mello, from the Executive Secretariat of the City Hall Niterói.

Within the scope of protected area management, the municipality of Florianópolis has taken some decisive steps to advance this process, adapting to the SNUC (National System of Conservation Units). "Having training in these terms of Ecosystem Services will give us a good foundation so that the terms of reference and the management plans themselves can include this discussion, including compensation measures for the conversion of fines, for example, and for a series of other activities," said the representative of the Municipal Environmental Foundation of Florianópolis. Florianópolis, Aracídio de Freitas Barbosa Neto.

In the case of Porto Alegre, the municipality has been working on building new workflows for the processes and licensing of Conservation Units (UCs), so that they become more understandable to society as a whole, with clearer and more objective rules. “To adapt to this new reality, we are transforming ourselves into a Secretariat of Environmental and Urban Planning. So, everything we have seen here will help us complement this change. This work is related not only to the objective of creating the UCs, but also to the ecosystem services that these UCs bring to the community,” added Márcia Eliana de Souza Correia, from the Municipal Secretariat of Environment and Sustainability. Porto Alegre.

The training was conducted by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, an institution that implements the regional project Local Protected Areas in partnership with ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). In addition to the technical team from the organizations implementing the regional project in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru, and representatives from the municipalities, the workshop was attended by analysts from the Ministry of the Environment (MMA), the project's political counterpart.

For ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, the workshop was the first opportunity to identify the needs of municipalities in order to plan ongoing training to integrate SE (Strategic Economics) into the decision-making process.