Assessment of Sustainable Provision of Goods and Services from Grassland-based Systems

Grasslands provide a broad range of ecosystem services. This role of grasslands for sustainable development is however largely neglected.
The aims of this project are to

• Make the importance of ecosystem services of grassland beyond food provision and carbon sequestration visible and
• Assess existing data and identify data gaps on state and trends of grasslands for provision of these ecosystem services. 

A) Improve global data sets on grassland quality in terms of protein and gross energy for the SOL model

B) co-organise an e-forum on sustainable grasslands

C) General literature review and synthesis on

• the environmental status of grasslands, management types  and management influences
• various ecosystem services provided by grasslands
• the management options that support ecosystem provision and reduce degradation
• the role of those services for regional/national/global economies and sustainable development

D) Illustration with national case studies; suggestions are

• Kenya, large developing country, with a wide range of different grassland types, good data availability (to be checked in detail)
• USA, large developed country, with a wide range of different grassland types, good data availability.

Expected results:

E) Scientific review paper on the “The Neglected Green Wealth of Nations – The Role of Grasslands for Sustainable Development”

F) Identify data collection needs in FAOSTAT related to grassland use, their environmental status and ecosystem services.

• Food and Agriculture Organisation of the Untied Nations (FAO)

• Schader Christian (Department of Food System Sciences)

• Isensee Anne (Department of Livestock Sciences)
• Leiber Florian (Department of Livestock Sciences)
• Müller Adrian (Department of Food System Sciences)

Koordination und Durchführung

• Animal Nutrition (Department of Livestock Sciences, FiBL Switzerland)
• Sustainability (Department of Food System Sciences, FiBL Switzerland)