ESPA (Ecosystem services for poverty alleviation) was a 9-year UK research programme to explore the links between the environment and human wellbeing. Please note the ESPA Directorate closed in mid-2018. What was ESPA?ESPA’s goal was to ensure that ecosystems will be conserved and managed more sustainably – in ways that alleviate poverty and enhance wellbeing.ESPA was a 9 year global interdisciplinary research programme that aimed to give decision-makers and natural resource users the evidence they need to address the challenges of sustainable ecosystem management and poverty reduction.The programme was developed by the UK Government in response to the findings of the 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment that substantial gains in human well-being in recent decades have been achieved at the expense of high and often irreversible levels of ecosystem degradation. The programme was delivered between 2009-2018.The overarching message of ESPA's research was that policy and programmes that utilise environmental resources will inevitably carry implications for human wellbeing and may even bear hidden human costs - unless there is due assessment and care. These implications and any potential human costs must be adequately understood and explicitly addressed through open, just and democratic processes. ESPA research looked at the multiple dimensions of wellbeing - and suggested that the different ways that social groups (women and men, youth and elders, ethnic groups, rich and poor) use and value environmental resources should be recognised in decision-making. ESPA research also emphasised that equity and justice are environmental issues.Some of the programme’s key thematic insights were drawn together in an open access book on Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation: Trade-offs and Governance.Ecosystem Services and Poverty Alleviation (OPEN ACCESS) | Trade-offs A full list of the projects funded by the ESPA programme, their outputs and the outputs of the ESPA Directorate can be found on the government’s UKRI Gateway to Research website (by searching for ‘ESPA’).UKRI Gateway to Research websiteFurther informationPlease contact EdinburghResearchOffice@ed.ac.uk This article was published on 2025-10-02
