Community Ecosystem Services
Community Ecosystem Services incorporates Ecotrust’s Fisheries, Forestry, and Native programs. The program takes an integrated approach to supporting conservation science, emerging ecosystem service markets, and community access to natural resources. The program seeks to produce tangible outcomes at the large landscape scale — outcomes that restore the resilience of economic and ecological systems.
Ecosystem Services
Forestry Program
Fisheries Program
Native Program
Here’s a sample of our objectives for 2010:
Watershed conservation and restoration
- Conserve the salmon biodiversity, culture and economy of the Copper River in Alaska and Skeena River in B.C. by bridging social and economic divides among communities, building science partnerships, addressing water resource, fisheries management and hatchery policies, and developing public mapping, data synthesis and educational tools; and
- Expanding Ecotrust’s Whole Watershed Restoration Initiative to include the North Olympic Coast as a priority basin while funding and tracking approximately 20 community-based restoration projects in Washington, Oregon and Idaho.
Ecosystem Services
- Coordinate and leverage ecosystem services market activities across Ecotrust;
- Execute carbon and water reservations/rights transactions;
- Build an online forest carbon assessment tool for landowners; and
- Assist in the design of Forest Carbon Offset Aggregation protocol for the voluntary market and prepare for U.S. carbon legislation.
Community Forests and Fisheries
- Create a replicable community forestry acquisition strategy;
- Publicize the economic and social values associated with the long-term, careful management of our native forests;
- Create model community fisheries trusts; the Alaska Sustainable Fisheries Trust and the Port Orford Ocean Resources Trust and catalyze a national network;
- Work to improve the design of fisheries catch share (quota) programs to protect and enhance community-based conservation fisheries; and
- Enhance community ownership of fisheries assets by deploying capital through the North Pacific Fisheries Trust.
Indigenous Leadership
- Promote indigenous leadership at the individual and community level through the Ecotrust Award for Indigenous Leadership and deliberate access to Ecotrust initiatives on ecosystem services, watershed restoration, and knowledge tools; and
- Expand our interaction with community-based leaders throughout all of our community ecosystem service projects.
