Assessment of Ecosystems and Ecosystem Services in Romanian

necessary complement to the scientific assessment of ecosystems and their services to
be able to improve decision and policy making, using MAES process results in order to
achieve Good Ecosystems Governance and sustainable development; also, awareness
raising and capacity building of relevant institutions take time and are fundamental for
the successful uptake of scientific information into decision and policy making since it is
not possible to manage what it is not known.
Assessing the economic value of all ecosystems services, and promote the integration
of these values into accounting and reporting systems at EU and national level is to
be done by 2020, so a follow up of the N4D project is also a necessity and a logical
step towards achieving good status of ecosystems and their services and consequently
human well-being.
1.1. Objectives of the Report
The purpose of this report is to inform EU and Romanian government and other
stakeholders (scientific institutions, civil society) about the implementation
of the MAES process in Romania, the results of the implementation and
recommendations.
This report is mainly addressed to national policy and decision makers as well
as government administrations and institutions responsible for implementing
national policies. It is primarily intended for the Ministry of Environment (MoE),
responsible for the MAES process, and the National Environmental Protection
Agency (NEPA), with delegated responsibilities for implementing the MAES process
at national level. Scientific circles including national research institutes, universities
as well as independent experts also constitute a primary audience due to the strong
link between scientific research and policy elaboration. This report is also relevant for
civil society organizations active in the environmental and development fields on
issues such as improvement of public policies, protected area management, natural
resources management, sustainable production and consumption, etc. Finally, the
European Commission is interested in Member State’s experience and progress
towards implementation of the MAES process and thus, the report will be shared with
their representatives.
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1.2. Background
The problem of biodiversity loss has been recognized globally along with the fact
that adequate indicators are needed to address the global challenges of the
21 st century such as climate change, poverty, resource depletion, health and quality of
life, and last but not least, the consequent mounting migration phenomena of “politicalenvironmentally
(resource) displaced people”.
Economic indicators such as GDP were never designed to be comprehensive measures of
prosperity and well-being. In 2007, the European Commission (EC), European Parliament,
Club of Rome, OECD and WWF hosted the high-level conference “Beyond GDP” with the
objectives to clarify which indices are most appropriate to measure progress, and how
these can best be integrated into the decision-making process and taken up by public
debate. In August 2009, the EC released the Communication “GDP and beyond:
Measuring progress in a changing world” providing a roadmap made of five key
actions to be undertaken in the near term:
• Complementing GDP with highly aggregated environmental and social indicators
• Near real-time information for decision-making
• More accurate reporting on distribution and inequalities
• Developing a European Sustainable Development Scoreboard
• Extending National Accounts to environmental and social issues. 2
2 http://ec.europa.eu/environment/beyond_gdp/background_en.html