Ecosystem services describe the various valuable goods and non-material benefits that humankind receives from nature. This includes food, clean water or wood, but also regulating services such as pollination, erosion control or flood protection as well as cultural services such as recreation and landscape aesthetics. The motto of the Conference, organized by the Institute of Physical Geography and Landscape Ecology together with the Institute for Environmental Planning and ESP, was "10 years advancing ecosystem services science, policy and practice for a sustainable future". Speakers were among others Dr. Christiane Paulus (BMU), Dr. Klaus Töpfer (former UNEP Executive Director and former Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety), Prof. Dr. Robert Costanza (one of the "founding fathers" of the ecosystem services approach, Australian State University), Prof. Dr. Berta Martin-Lopez (Leuphana University Lüneburg) and Hans Bruyninckx (Director of the European Environment Agency), who presented their perspectives on the diverse application potentials of the ecosystem services concept for science, politics and society. ESP World Conferences are held every two years and complemented by regional conferences in the intervening years.
