Dr. Emer N? Dh?ill:

Definitely. The first thing, is that biodiversity is really location-specific, so it is not the same as carbon, which is the same wherever it is. What we really need is to develop the ecosystem accounts. We already have European environmental ecosystem accounting that uses the system of environmental economic accounting central framework, which kind of feeds into the system of national accounts.

What we need to be looking at and understanding is the extent and condition of our ecosystems, because we do not know what they can provide us if we do not know what condition they are in. One of the things that has come out of a lot of the research that is going on is the lack of data and lack of sufficient maps. The latest land cover map is absolutely fantastic and way better than what was being used in terms of resolution. They were using the Korean map. However, it is only the first iteration and it really needs to be kept up to date. Even though the resolution is good, it does not get into the ecosystem type and we really need that as well. It is investment in finding out about the state of nature in Ireland. The CSO has set up an environmental accounting division and has started developing ecosystem accounts. There is a new regulation coming out as an amendment to the current EU regulation on developing these accounts and it is going to mandate ecosystem accounts for all EU countries. It has been adopted and is waiting to go through the European Parliament and Council now. It is a really important regulation. We have an awful lot to learn, between ecologists, people in research and people in academia. We all need to work together. One of the strongest messages I have is to invest in researching what state our ecosystems are in, their extent and condition.