An Application of the Final Ecosystem Goods and Services Scoping Tool at Restoration Sites in Tillamook Bay (Presentation)
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Stakeholders typically have different priorities regarding the purpose or goals for restoring specific sites (or areas), particularly regarding the benefits that the restoration might provide to them or the communities they represent. Prior to initiating the actual restoration work, those different priorities must be reconciled into a final set of shared goals around which the restoration project design and monitoring are developed. In many cases, those goals are expressions of final ecosystem goods and services (FEGS) which are those biophysical attributes of nature that people directly use, appreciate, or enjoy – such as charismatic wildlife for recreational experiencers and viewers, property protection for residents, and edible fauna for hunters and anglers. The FEGS Scoping Tool (FST) can be used by restoration practitioners for a particular decision (e.g., a restoration design) to identify those FEGS valued by the suite of stakeholders involved in that decision, and the beneficiaries (individuals or groups) that those FEGS speak directly to. Using a structured approach to identify FEGS and beneficiaries can help restoration practitioners focus on common interests that can build toward shared restoration goals and help with identifying relevant ecosystem service attributes to include in restoration design and measure during pre- and post-remediation monitoring. We will demonstrate an application of the FST in Tillamook Bay, OR where we worked with restoration planners from Tillamook Bay’s National Estuary Partnership. We used the tool to determine how restoration goals and monitoring metrics could be linked to FEGS most relevant to local stakeholders. This allowed for an evaluation of restoration performance that can be communicated in terms of locally relevant final ecosystem goods. This transparent and replicable approach can be useful for restoration planners when selecting environmental attributes to be incorporated into restoration goals. It is transferable across a wide range of environmental decision contexts in which it is important to consider various, complex stakeholder interests and restoration engineering options. This flexibility also allows for the FST to be easily adaptable from small- to large-scale restoration projects both in size/extent of the project and number of stakeholders involved.