Environmental services and land use change: Bridging the gap between policy and research in Southeast Asia: Special issue of Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment

Awareness of environmental services and land use change in Southeast Asia is high among scientists, policymakers, andsociety. In the case of transboundary smoke, the level of awareness and concern in the region is high, but subsides in betweenperiods of ‘crisis’. Although there is a rising level of awareness of habitat loss and associated loss of genetic diversity, the basiccause–effect relationships underlying the ecological roles of biodiversity are still debated. Degradation of watershed functionsis the most mature of our three meso-scale environmental topics; indeed it shows signs of being ‘fossilized’ by vested interestsin the present consensus. Land use planning and other regulatory approaches have had little success. Policy instruments forachieving meso-level environmental policy objectives through changing incentives such as payment schemes for environmentalservices, have not been tested widely in Southeast Asia (or anywhere else). Further research and experimentation needs toincorporate strategic consideration of processes and spatial scales of environmental impacts and resource governance.

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