Dr Stuart Bunting, Department of Biological Sciences, assisted an international research team to produce the ‘Investing in Ecosystem Services Vital to Improving Food Security’ report, funded by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the International Water Management Institute (IWMI).

The report, released on 22 August, suggests that healthy ecosystems can help to produce more food from agricultural land, improve resilience to climate change and provide economic benefits for poor communities. Further, managing and investing in the connections between these ecosystems, for example, by planting trees on farmland, could help avoid water scarcity and meet the growing demands of a global population set to reach 9 billion by 2050. Dr Bunting contributed his expertise on aquaculture, culture-based fisheries and freshwater fisheries to the report.

Written by over 50 contributors from 21 organizations, the report recommends changes to three main areas; environmental protection, water resource management and food production and also sets out key recommendations for a new ‘agroecosystem’ approach.

The report is available online from www.iwmi.org/ecosystems or www.unep.org