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PROJECT #2003-10
Building Local Capacity for Global Change Research:The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Sub-Global Activities in the Asia-Pacific Region

Another eighteen (18) participants from the following countries were funded from sources other than APN: Brazil, Cameroon, Egypt, Kenya, Mozambique , the Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Portugal, Sweden, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago and Zimbabwe .

Brief introduction and background:
In November 2004, findings from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) – an integrated assessment of ecosystem change and its effects on human well-being – will be released. Integral to the MA is a set of ‘sub-global assessments' being conducted at scales ranging from local communities to multi-country regions. This APN grant supports capacity building activities of the MA sub-global assessments in the Asia-Pacific region, by increasing the participation of Asia-Pacific researchers in two core activities: a workshop on modelling and scenario-building, and a sub-global working group meeting. These activities serve to:

• Improve the technical capabilities of regional scientists to develop scenarios of ecosystem change;
• Build regional cooperation in ecosystem change research through the exchange of data and lessons learned; and
• Increase the participation of scientists in the region in global change research.

The increased capacity to undertake integrated ecosystem assessments in the region will contribute to improved environmental decision-making at every level of governance.

Outline of activities conducted:
In April 2003, the MA held a four-day workshop on scenarios and modelling in Penang, Malaysia. There were thirty-three (33) participants from the various MA sub-global assessment activities, including fifteen (15) from the Asia-Pacific who were supported by APN. The workshop was designed to provide training on the process of developing scenarios, including the use of quantitative models on the impacts of changes in driving forces on ecosystems and human well-being, as well as developing plausible storylines.

During the workshop, participants were introduced to the strengths and weaknesses of various approaches to scenarios (e.g. qualitative versus quantitative, exploratory versus anticipatory). Specific types of scenarios and modelling approaches, including those used for climate change (e.g. the IPCC emissions scenarios), land-use and land-cover change, socio-economic change (e.g. Shell), and UNEP's GEO-3 scenarios, were presented. Specific methods used by the sub-global assessments, such as the local village assessments in India, were shared. Scenarios were also discussed as a tool for engagement with stakeholders. Participants then joined small group exercises to gain more hands-on experience in building scenarios. Structured to be highly interactive, the workshop included significant discussion time in break-out groups. Overall, workshop activities yielded important insights for participants on scenario-building at both the local and global levels.

Outcomes and products:
Scenarios are a key element in the MA methodological approach for integrated ecosystem assessments. Each sub-global assessment is now developing scenarios that describe how ecosystem services and their impacts on human well-being could change under various plausible future changes in driving forces. For many sub-global assessments, scenarios are proving to be a useful tool for engaging and interacting with stakeholders. Scenarios are also acting as a practical and immediate bridge to the responses components of the assessments, which form direct input into decision-making.

Materials used in the workshop have been compiled into a training module that is available from the MA website: http://www.millenniumassessment.org/en/products.aspx Upon accessing the website, scroll down to Training and Capacity Building Tools. The MA has encouraged participants to share their experiences and learning with other members of their sub-global assessment teams, and to use the training module as a tool to train others. In addition, the MA is currently having discussions with UNEP to incorporate this into a wider set of training tools on integrated ecosystem assessments.

Future directions and follow-up work:
During 2004, the MA will hold two meetings of the Sub-Global Working Group, which groups all of the MA sub-global assessments. The meetings will focus on:

• The exchange of information and substantive findings from each of the sub-global assessments, providing opportunities to share lessons learned and best practices for conducting multi-scale assessments; and
• Writing the sub-global working group report, synthesizing the findings and lessons learned from the sub-global assessments – this report will be one of the volumes in the core set of MA publications to be released in early 2005. The first working group meeting in 2004 will be in March at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt, in conjunction with the MA's international conference on “Bridging Scales & Epistemologies”.