Cascadia Ecosystem Services Partnership

Cascadia Ecosystem Services Partnership (CaESP)

The Pacific Northwest or “Cascadia” is a region rich in natural resources, home to many leading academic institutions and a highly engaged and proactive citizenry. For these and many other reasons, Cascadia has over the past decade become renowned for extensive, groundbreaking work in ecosystem services. Today, the number of organizations doing work within this field is extensive and continues to grow, including academics, nonprofits, private firms and government agencies. The groundswell of interest has caused tremendous growth for ecosystem services work in the region with little emphasis on comprehensive coordination. This is the role of the Cascadia Ecosystem Services Partnership: to provide strategic assistance for integrating projects, facilitating robust communication and supporting the emergence of a shared direction for ecosystem services work in the Cascadia region, especially Oregon and Washington.

With help from generous funding from the Bullitt Foundation the Institute for Sustainable Solutions has taken the central role in developing, managing and building the CaESP.  CaESP draws resources from PSU’s growing number of faculty, staff and students with deep expertise in ecosystem services, which are used to help strengthen the collective work within the region.  At its core, the partnership serves two vital functions for the growing network of organizations working on ecosystem service valuation, assessment and planning:

1. Developing and maintaining robust and transparent information-sharing networks and tools

2. Integrating and coordinating the many disparate projects in the region

For more information, please contact Fletcher Beaudoin, beaudoin@pdx.edu