The Experimental Ecosystem Accounting in Uganda project generated a set of natural capital accounts for Uganda that can support knowledge-based policy making for improved management of biodiversity and help monitor progress towards the Aichi Targets and the Sustainable Development Goals.
What is natural capital accounting?
Natural capital accounting is now widely promoted as a policy support tool for achieving better management of natural capital, and an increasing number of forest, land and water accounts are being developed in the UK, EU, across Africa and other countries around the world in response to policy demands. At the international level, the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) provides a framework for integrating economic and environmental data to support decision making, including internationally agreed standard concepts, definitions, classifications, accounting rules and tables for producing internationally comparable statistics and accounts.
What about biodiversity accounting?
Accounting for biodiversity and the ecosystem services it provides has remained challenging. This is due, in part, to complexities in measuring the multiple aspects of biodiversity and the value it provides. In recent years, a range of experimental approaches to accounting for biodiversity have emerged around the globe, often highlighting the need to tailor biodiversity related accounts to specific contexts and policy and management decisions. One such initiative is the Experimental Ecosystem Accounting in Uganda project, funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and implemented by UNEP-WCMC, the IDEEA Group, National Planning Authority, National Environmental Management Authority, and Wildlife Conservation Society. This project built on the SEEA framework to generate a set of biodiversity relevant accounts for Uganda.
Biodiversity accounting in Uganda
Uganda is one of the most biodiversity rich countries in the world and home to over half of the world’s population of Mountain Gorillas. This natural richness generates a range of products and services that underpin livelihoods, including tourism, fisheries, forestry and agriculture. As such, biodiversity is recognised as an important part of the country’s natural capital stock, delivering ecosystem services that support well-being. However, in common with almost the entire world, there are concerns at the rate at which Uganda is losing its biodiversity.1
The Experimental Ecosystem Accounting in Uganda project compiled accounts for Uganda’s stocks of land cover and ecosystems. These accounts can be extended by incorporating expert knowledge on species habitat preferences and ranges to reveal the impact of different land-use decision on biodiversity (we term these Species Accounts). This was completed for three non-timber forest product species (Gum Arabic, Shea butter nuts and Prunus africana) and two flagship mammal species (Chimpanzees and Elephants) – all of which are both economically and culturally important. A key benefit of this approach is that these accounts can often be readily brought together using existing data. Given this data is spatial in nature, they can also be generated for a number of different areas of interest, such as provinces, watersheds or protected areas.
The accounts revealed a number of key policy findings, including opportunities for developing wildlife tourism, opportunities for developing areas for sustainable harvesting of export products, tools for ecosystem protection (namely, protected areas), significant species conservation benefits, and information that can support reporting on a range of policy commitments. It also identified key areas for the development and improvement when accounting for biodiversity.
How do we bridge accounting and policy?
There are multiple ways decision-makers and researchers can use the information presented in the accounts to analyse trends in natural capital in Uganda, including monitoring progress towards national policy commitments including the National Biodiversity Strategy Plan and National Development Plan. The project has also developed spatial data infrastructure that can readily be employed to support such work and is equally relevant to other countries facing similar policy challenges.
Moreover, the Convention of Biological Diversity’s Aichi Targets and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a set of key policy entry points for natural capital accounting, as highlighted at the World Bank Wealth Accounting and the Valuation of Ecosystem Services (WAVES) Natural Capital Accounting for Better Policy Decisions forum in 2017. Uganda, alongside 135 other countries, has committed to achieving the Aichi Targets in its National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP), and, alongside 195 countries, Uganda is also committed to the SDGs.
What are the main outcomes of the project?
The accounts provide significant insights into the state and trends in biodiversity for Uganda, and illustrate how natural capital accounts directly inform and monitor progress towards international commitments, particularly:
SDG 1 (End poverty in all its forms everywhere): The species accounts presented inform where tourism and non-timber forest product possibilities can contribute to local economic development and address poverty.
SDG 15 (Sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, halt and reverse land degradation, halt biodiversity loss): The land, ecosystem extent and species accounts track whether ecosystems are being sustainable managed by identifying where habitat loss is occurring.
Aichi Target 11 (by 2020 at least 17% of terrestrial and inland water are conserved through effectively and equitably managed, ecologically representative and well-connected systems of protected areas ): The flagship species and ecosystem extent accounts reveal progress towards protecting an ecologically representative set of areas with high biodiversity importance in Uganda.
Aichi Target 12: By 2020 the extinction of known threatened species plants and animals has been prevented and their conservation status improved: The flagship species, Shea butter nut tree and Prunus africana accounts can inform progress towards protecting the range and conservation status of these threatened species.
It is hoped that a rapid development of initial natural capital accounts with practical applications will help foster support by key users. This approach also quickly establishes the necessary foundation for wider ecosystem focused natural capital accounting.
The approach, results and their relevance to wider SDGs and Aichi Targets are described in detail in UNEP-WCMC & IDEEA (2017) Experimental Ecosystem Accounting in Uganda: www.wcmc.io/0524