ABSTRACT

Mainstreaming ecosystem services into decision making processes - especially those decisions related to current and future development - is important in order to achieve the aspirations enshrined in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. South Africa has a long history of ecosystem service assessments, with many examples of how to engage in multi-stakeholder processes that can facilitate the co-production and exchange of knowledge. We reflect on a handful of these mainstreaming activities in South Africa and discuss some lessons learnt on the opportunities and challenges of integrating information on ecosystem services into decision-making processes at different scales and in different contexts. In addition, we outline a mainstreaming framework and associated principles that can help guide researchers, practitioners and policy makers in future work within the science-policy-practice interface. Our approach centers on three iterative phases: project co-design, knowledge and output co-production, and co-implementation activities that can assist with learning and adaptation. We found that transdisciplinary approaches that embed activities in a targeted implementation context and easily respond to windows of opportunity are more likely to result in mainstreaming success.