2.1.1 A social process

Any meaningful Ecosystem Services Assessment should be a social process.

Assessments are context specific and often can’t cover all services which is why they should also be an iterative process. During these iterations, the project team should remain adaptable, calling in appropriate expertise and engaging efficiently withthose stakeholders who will be using the outputs.

The project team as defined here is an association between managers and experts. The managers aim to use the ecosystem services approach to deliver  a concrete objectives within a management context and have a major involvement in stakeholder participation. The experts bring methods and implement them with the managers in a relevant, context specific,way.

The first users of this approach are therefore managers and policy makers.

As well as specific cases of implementation of ecosystem services tools for scientific research objectives, the Ecosystem Services Approach is a way to consider the management of environmental issues and therefore, is a social process.