1. Principle Criteria Comment about requirement for tools
Principle
1
Promote societal choice
using transparent and
equitable processes & tools
Importance of decision support tools involving
viewpoints of relevant stakeholders enabling
conflicting positions to be recognised and built into
processes and decisions.
Principle
2
Delegate decisions to most
suitable scale
Delegation requires tools to be operable at different
scales to engage all potential stakeholders. Tools need
to be robust and flexible enough to work at different
levels.
Principle
3
Assess adjacent effects Management interventions in ecosystems often have
unknown or unpredictable effects on other
ecosystems. This calls for tools that address
ecosystems as connected systems, but which can
function with evidence gaps
Principle
4
Incorporate economic and
social drivers
Tools to support this step need to address
relationships between natural systems, people and
the economy, for which many links are poorly
understood. Recognising and assessing drivers of
change are important in tools that consider both
knowledge gaps and uncertainty. In particular we
need to recognise that these are complex natural
systems, not simply stocks, and so impacts can be and
difficult to predict
Principle
5
Encourage ecosystem
resilience
Biodiversity conservation and the maintenance of
human wellbeing depend on the functioning and
resilience of natural ecosystems. Ecosystem services
framework provides a rigorous and peer reviewed
approach that has scientific credibility.
The benefits people obtain from ecosystems– depend
on maintaining and, where appropriate, restoring
particular ecological structures and functions, so tools
have to be effective at incorporating these often
overlooked non-marketed values into decision-
making.
Principle
6
Respond to uncertainty in
environmental limits
Our current understanding is insufficient to allow
environmental limits to be precisely defined, and
therefore tools supporting adaptive management,
coupled with the precautionary approach, are
necessary with social learning used to improve future

2. responses and understanding.
Principle
7
Operate at and across
multiple spatial and temporal
scales
The drivers of ecosystems, vary spatially and through
time, necessitating management interventions and
tools that can operate at more than one spatial and
temporal scale to meet management objectives.
Principle
8
Champion the long term
approach
Ecosystem processes are characterized by varying
temporal scales and lag-effects. This inherently
conflicts with the short term focus of economic and
political systems. We need tools that can factor in
such long term horizons.
Principle
9
Manage change to best
advantage
Tools are needed to help manage change; there is a
key role for futures tools here. Adaptive management
is key to anticipate and cater for change. Caution is
required in making decisions lacking flexibility.
Feedback of social learning is a key ingredient of
successful adaptive management
Principle
10
Champion biological
diversity
Biological diversity is critical both for its intrinsic value
and because of the key role it plays in providing the
ecosystem and other services upon which we all
ultimately depend. This non-market value needs to be
embedded in decision-making tools and processes.
Principle
11
Optimise evidence from
multiple sources
Evidence should be secured from all relevant
stakeholders (local and expert) recognising the need
to process different types through a range of tools in
order to maximise transparency and robustness in
decision processes.
Principle
12
Maximise and maintain
stakeholder engagement
Most decisions are complex and contested. Decisions
should harness and engage the necessary expertise
using expert and local knowledge(s) across scales and
sectors. Deliberative and iterative engagement
processes and targeting are increasingly required to
capture public views and build a meaningful dialogue.