Commonland: The AIVelAI Project

Abstract

The case is about a Dutch organisation, Commonland which scouts, launches, and manages business-driven landscape restoration projects. In 2014 it started a new landscape restoration project in the Southern region of Spain in an area that covers 630,000 hectares of land spanning across three municipalities; Altiplano, Los Vélez, and Alto Almanzora, or AlVelAl for short. Decades of unsustainable agricultural practices in almond and cereal farming having resulted in severe landscape degradation, and the region also suffers from a host of social problems including rural abandonment and unemployment. Commonland has launched several smaller and some larger initiatives in the region designed to promote sustainable agriculture, increase income of residents through high-quality, organic agricultural produce, boost employment, and return inspiration to the region. There have been some successes but the project is not delivering the results Commonland had hoped for, and it now appears that the initiatives launched will only restore a small portion of the total land area. Michiel de Man, business developed with Commonland, now needs to revise the organisation‘s strategy in AlVelAl, with the objective to come up with initiatives that will restore larger portions of the land and bring about financial, social, cultural, and inspirational returns to local residents, farmers, authorities, and investors involved in the project.

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Resources

Appendix A: Ecosystem Services

The center of the chart is labeled “ecosystem services” and its components are listed as follows:

  • Provisioning
    • Food: accompanied by an icon of a rice bowl with chopsticks
    • Raw materials: accompanied by an icon of a big hexagon with three hexagons of decreasing sizes
    • Medicinal resources: accompanied by an icon of a tablet and a capsule
    • Fresh water: accompanied by an icon of a water droplet falling from a tap
  • Regulating
    • Air quality regulation: accompanied by an icon of a tree
    • Climate regulation: accompanied by an icon of the Sun partially visible behind a rain cloud
    • Water regulation: accompanied by an icon of a water droplet that is surrounded by a curved rightward and leftward arrow on its top and bottom, respectively
    • Erosion regulation: accompanied by an icon of a piece of land being eroded
    • Water purification and waste treatment: accompanied by an icon of a tub pouring water on a grassy ground/water body
    • Disease and pest regulation: accompanied by an icon of a bird
    • Pollination: accompanied by an icon of a bee
    • Moderation of extreme events: accompanied by an icon of a lightning and thunder cloud
  • Supporting
    • Soil formation: accompanied by an icon of a soil layers
    • Photosynthesis: accompanied by an icon of a leaf
    • Nutrient cycling: accompanied by an icon of a three wheat strands surrounded by a rightward and leftward arrow on its top and bottom, respectively
  • Cultural
    • Spiritual and religious values: accompanied by an icon of a Wheel of the Law on a palm
    • Aesthetic values: accompanied by an icon of the Sun setting behind a water body that has a few trees
    • Recreation and ecotourism: accompanied by an icon of a stick figure lying down under a patio umbrella
    • Mental and physical health: accompanied by an icon of a heart inside the head

Text on the bottom left of the chart reads:

“Figure 6: Ecosystem services

Provisioning services are the products obtained from ecosystems, regulating services are the benefits obtained from the regulation of ecosystem processes, cultural services are the nonmaterial benefits people obtained from ecosystems and supporting services are those services that are necessary for the production of all other ecosystem services. Adapted from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005.”

A donut chart, titled “Increased human pressure is diminishing natural capital at a faster rate than it can be replenished,” shows the ecosystem services.

Source: World Wildlife Fund. (2016). Living Planet Report 2016: Risk and Resilience in a New Era.

Natural capital is another term for the stock of renewable and non-renewable natural resources on earth (e.g., plants, animals, air, water, soils, minerals) that combine to yield a flow of benefits or “services” to people. These flows can be ecosystem services or abiotic services, which provide value to business and to society.

Abiotic services are benefits to people that do not depend on ecological processes but arise from fundamental geological processes and include the supply of minerals, metals, and oil and gas, as well as geothermal heat, wind, tides, and the annual seasons.

Ecosystem services:

Ecosystem services refer to the benefits humans obtain directly or indirectly from ecosystems. Ecosystem degradation results in the persistent reduction in the capacity to provide ecosystem services.

Ecosystem Services can be divided into provisioning services (food, water, wood, raw materials), regulating services (pollination of crops, flood and disease control, water purification, prevention of soil erosion, sequestering carbon dioxide), cultural services (recreational, spiritual and educational services) and supporting services (nutrient cycling, maintenance of genetic diversity).

Provisioning services: The products obtained from ecosystems, including, for example, genetic resources, food and fiber, and fresh water.

  • Food: Ecosystems provide the conditions for growing food. Food comes principally from managed agro-ecosystems but marine and freshwater systems or forests also provide food for human consumption. Wild foods from forests are often underestimated.
  • Raw materials: Ecosystems provide a great diversity of materials for construction and fuel including wood, biofuels and plant oils that are directly derived from wild and cultivated plant species.
  • Fresh water: Ecosystems play a vital role in the global hydrological cycle, as they regulate the flow and purification of water. Vegetation and forests influence the quantity of water available locally.

Regulating services: The benefits obtained from the regulation of ecosystem processes, including, for example, the regulation of climate, water, and some human diseases.

  • Carbon sequestration and storage: Ecosystems regulate the global climate by storing and sequestering greenhouse gases. As trees and plants grow, they remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and effectively lock it away in their tissues. In this way forest ecosystems are carbon stores. Biodiversity also plays an important role by improving the capacity of ecosystems to adapt to the effects of climate change.
  • Moderation of extreme events: Extreme weather events or natural hazards include floods, storms, tsunamis, avalanches and landslides. Ecosystems and living organisms create buffers against natural disasters, thereby preventing possible damage. For example, wetlands can soak up flood water whilst trees can stabilize slopes. Coral reefs and mangroves help protect coastlines from storm damage.
  • Erosion prevention and maintenance of soil fertility: Soil erosion is a key factor in the process of land degradation and desertification. Vegetation cover provides a vital regulating service by preventing soil erosion. Soil fertility is essential for plant growth and agriculture and well functioning ecosystems supply the soil with nutrients required to support plant growth.

Cultural ecosystem services: The nonmaterial benefits people obtain from ecosystems through spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, reflection, recreation, and aesthetic experience, including, e.g., knowledge systems, social relations, and aesthetic values.

  • Recreation and mental and physical health: Walking and playing sports in green space is not only a good form of physical exercise but also lets people relax. The role that green space plays in maintaining mental and physical health is increasingly being recognized, despite difficulties of measurement.
  • Tourism: Ecosystems and biodiversity play an important role for many kinds of tourism which in turn provides considerable economic benefits and is a vital source of income for many countries. Cultural and eco-tourism can also educate people about the importance of biological diversity.
  • Aesthetic appreciation and inspiration for culture, art and design: Language, knowledge and the natural environment have been intimately related throughout human history. Biodiversity, ecosystems and natural landscapes have been the source of inspiration for much of our art, culture and increasingly for science.
  • Spiritual experience and sense of place: In many parts of the world natural features such as specific forests, caves or mountains are considered sacred or have a religious meaning. Nature is a common element of all major religions and traditional knowledge, and associated customs are important for creating a sense of belonging.

Supporting services: Ecosystem services that are necessary for the maintenance of all other ecosystem services. Some examples include biomass production, production of atmospheric oxygen, soil formation and retention, nutrient cycling, water cycling, and provisioning of habitat.

Habitat service: The importance of ecosystems to provide living space for resident and migratory species.

Biodiversity is critical to the health and stability of natural capital as it provides resilience to shocks like floods and droughts, and it supports fundamental processes such as the carbon and water cycles as well as soil formation. Therefore biodiversity is both a part of natural capital and also underpins ecosystem services. Natural capital and the benefits that flow from it sustain us all: individuals, families, companies, and society as a whole. At the same time, our individual or collective actions can build or degrade natural capital, depending on how we use it.

Source: The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity. (N.d.). Retrieved from: http://www.teebweb.org/resources/ecosystem-services/

Appendix B: Threats to Special Populations

The various threats shown in the image are listed as follows:

  • Habitat loss and degradation: This refers to the modification of the environment where a species lives, by either complete removal, fragmentation or reduction in quality of key habitat characteristics. Common causes are unsustainable agriculture, logging, transportation, residential or commercial development, energy production and mining. For freshwater habitats, fragmentation of rivers and streams and abstraction of water are common threats.

The text is preceded by an icon of an excavator.

  • Species overexploitation: There are both direct and indirect forms of overexploitation. Direct overexploitation refers to unsustainable hunting and poaching or harvesting, whether for subsistence or for trade. Indirect overexploitation occurs when non-target species are killed unintentionally, for example as bycatch in fisheries.

The text is preceded by an icon of a fishing boat.

  • Pollution: Pollution can directly affect a species by making the environment unsuitable for its survival (this is what happens, for example, in the case of an oil spill). It can also affect a species indirectly, by affecting food availability or reproductive performance, thus reducing population numbers over time.

The text is preceded by an icon of an industrial building releasing smoke into the atmosphere.

  • Invasive species and disease: Invasive species can compete with native species for space, food and other resources, can turn out to be a predator for native species, or spread diseases that were not previously present in the environment. Human also transport new diseases from one area of the globe to another.

The text is preceded by an icon of rabbit.

  • Climate change: A temperatures change, some species will need to adapt by shifting their range to track suitable climate. The effects of climate change on species are often indirect. Change in temperature can confound the signals that trigger seasonal events such as migration and reproduction, causing these events to happen at the wrong time (for example misaligning reproduction and the period of grater food availability in a specific habitat). The text is preceded by an icon of a thermometer, with a high mercury level, in front of a globe.

An image shows the different threats to special populations.

Source: World Wildlife Fund. (2016). Living Planet Report 2016: Risk and Resilience in a New Era.

Appendix C: Economic Indicators Spain by Province

Data shown by the three maps are tabulated as follows:

Unemployment rate. 2014 (Average = 24.4%)

Regions

30% or more

Andalusia

25 to 30%

Extremadura, Castilla-La Mancha, Murcia, Valencia

20 to 25%

Galicia, Asturias, Castile and León, Aragon, Catalonia, Menorca, Balearic Islands, Ibiza

Under 20%

Cantabria, Basque Country, Navarre, La Rioja, Madrid

GDP per capita. 2014

Indices (Average = 100)

Regions

120 or more

Basque Country, Navarre, Madrid

100 to 120

La Rioja, Aragon, Catalonia, Menorca, Balearic Islands, Ibiza

80 to 100

Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, Castile and León, Castilla-La Mancha, Valencia, Murcia

Under 80

Extremadura, Andalusia

Active companies. 2014

Per 1,000 inhabitants

(Average = 67.1%)

Regions

75 or more

Catalonia, Menorca, Balearic Islands, Ibiza, Madrid

65 to 75

Galicia, Basque Country, La Rioja, Navarre, Aragon, Valencia,

60 to 65

Asturias, Cantabria, Castile and León

Under 60

Extremadura, Castilla-La Mancha, Andalusia, Murcia

Three maps of Spain show the different economic indicators.

Appendix D: EU CAP Green Rural Development Targets 2014–2020

Data shown by the image are listed as follows:

  • Green Rural Development target 2014–2020
    • 19% of EU farmland under biodiversity management contract. This text is preceded by an icon of a butterfly.
    • 15% of EU farmland under soil management contract. This text is preceded by an icon of a rising sun behind a pedestrian crossing-like pattern.
    • 15% of EU farmland under better water management contract. This text is preceded by an icon of a rain cloud.
    • 7% of EU farmland under contract to reduce GHG or Ammonia. This text is preceded by an icon of a bleeding earth.
    • 2% of livestock units (equivalent of 3 million pigs) concerned by climate investments. This text is preceded by an icon of a pig head.

An image lists the EU CAP Green Rural Development Targets for the years 2014 to 2020.

This case was prepared for inclusion in Sage Business Cases primarily as a basis for classroom discussion or self-study, and is not meant to illustrate either effective or ineffective management styles. Nothing herein shall be deemed to be an endorsement of any kind. This case is for scholarly, educational, or personal use only within your university, and cannot be forwarded outside the university or used for other commercial purposes.

2024 Sage Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved

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