Abstract
The BESS (Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service Sustainability) programme started in February 2011 and was scheduled to run to January 2017. This year, a full and extensive mid-term review was submitted to the Programme Executive Board (PEB), detailing progress in a range of areas, and a full discussion of the implications for future spend and activity was discussed at the 12th PEB on 23rd July 2014. It was agreed that BESS has been extra-ordinarily successful in achieving its goals to date, but this in turn has created unanticipated demands on the original budget. These increased demands are due to the scale of the network created and unanticipated requirement on the Directorate to play a leading role in the biodiversity research and stakeholder community as well as becoming the focus of the Ecosystem Approach adopted by the UK agencies. As a result of the PEB discussions, a new spend profile has been drawn up which requires additional funds to supplement the original award.
United Kingdom