while Wande Gongba’s Tibetan scheme featured RMB awards per household. Both Thai and Tibetan schemes gained their energy for success sensitive and respected community involvement. Sunsanee Arunyawat and Rajendra Shrestha examine the impacts of rural land use change in northern Thailand on the landscapes ability to sustain ecosystem services. To approach this complex assessment they use two models: one was an Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs model (InVEST); the other a prediction model to help forecast trends in land use changes (CLU Mondo model). A field survey of 60 farm households provided a foundation on which to base the modeling. Using the year 2013 as a base line, the research projected future land use patterns to 2033. A business as usual scenario in which changes such as further rubber plantations continue, would result in declines in much needed ecosystem services like water yield, carbon storage and, importantly, declines in habitat quality – a proxy for biodiversity. A convincing case was made for either an integrated land use or biodiversity conservation land use scenario. Only these could ensure a sustained access to essential ecosystem services and to achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs). The business as usual scenario did not present a picture of sustainable development for the 96,000 people within the 198,000 ha of Phitsanulok and Phetchaboon provinces of northern Thailand. Payyappallimana and Subramanian of UNU present a convincing and timely call for linking biodiversity and ecosystems to human health. In this they elevate the more regional calls for community based biodiversity awareness and involvement to the level of sustained health at the global level. With this comes the co-lateral wisdom of placing biodiversity as central in enabling ecosystems to continue to provide interconnected provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural services. Within this theme ecosystems are integrated with Human wellbeing in a “Health Synthesis”, a synthesis in which affordable traditional medicine, agro- biodiversity and nutritional security unite. The Payyappallimana and Subramanian paper is far more than a generalized call for action. Much needed specifics decorate the message too. These include the One Health philosophy of an ethno-veterinary care of livestock to reduce antibiotic use and resistance; a factor of relevance to both humans and their livestock. Another timely example is the call to bring ecosystem resources into the professional realm of Health Ministries and departments. Collectively, this paper is a much needed affirmation that ecosystem respect and valuation is in no way a peripheral activity or added luxury to economic development: in contrast, human health and quality of life are directly linked to the diverse services that ecosystems provide. Thantorn Vanavanichkul et al. bring us an innovative method of converting a well- known and troublesome aquatic plant pest into a useful industrial product. This win-win method converts water hyancith biomass into a valuable carbonaceous product (carbon electrodes) using hydrothermal carbonization technology. Thus in an innovative way the Thantorn Vanavanichkul team offer society an enticing way to convert an environmental nuisance into an economic asset; a scheme that neatly address the technical competency needs of SDGs. Apaporn Bulsathaporn et al. used sensitive soil CO2 detection sensors to obtain new, much needed data on how soils under different forest types release rather different amounts of CO2. Working in western Thailand’s tropical monsoon forests, the team compared dry dipterocarp (DDF) with mixed deciduous forest (MDF) and showed that soil respiration Proceedings of the International Conference on Climate Change, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services for the 349 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Policy and Practice 27-29 June 2016, Cha-am, Phetchaburi, Thailand
Proceedings of International Conference on Climate Change, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services for the Sustainable Development Goals : Policy and Practice 27-29 June 2016 at the Sirindhorn International Environmental Park, Cha-am, Phetchaburi, Thailand
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