 I want to emphasize basically the human side of what we're all trying to do and how you know on the one hand it's a huge challenge and it's difficult at a personal level in many different dimensions orienting our lives around such ambitious goals as transforming to sustainable green inclusive pathways to development but just last week we had one of the world's many inspiring people here president Alvarado from Costa Rica and I bring him up because of two things basically they the country first of all has driven many transformations one of the first countries in the world to abolish the military a country that had very early universal health care very early universal education for girls and for boys and a country that recently when I started working there in the 1990s had the highest deforestation rate in the world in history and yet it turned around and now has one of the highest reforestation rates anywhere in the world it's also a country that last week a whole team came here to announce again the goal of becoming the world's first or maybe with a group decarbonized nation switching completely away from fossil fuels and inviting people in Silicon Valley here in our universities to engage in driving the research and all of the other the investment and other parts of transformation that are necessary to lead the world hopefully with a whole large group ever-growing group of countries to achieve that change so it was incredibly inspiring and hearing him talk and thinking about the arc that we are all a part of the people who've given to this cause for a long time that we're now carrying forward is what I wanted to get into and just emphasizing how from those maybe earlier times and going much further back we've had tremendous individuals that we're all connected to in some way I'm just going to highlight a couple here leading the path one key person was Ken Arrow he's at one level kind of intimidating a Nobel Prize in economics about five of his students I think got the Nobel Prize in economics as well and yet he was the kindest person always out just listening to others helping others make their lives and seeing the fun in it all so here he is a lot of his work was done with the team in Stockholm here he is with Carl Folke who many of you know learning one of the sweetest drinking songs just a couple years ago at another meeting driving research innovation to achieve sustainable development and Kalle is telling him you've got to bang your head on the table really hard like that um and I'm I'm just bringing him and bringing other heroes in our midst how Mooney will be joining us for much of the symposium and how you know um has been crucial in driving innovation that brings together science and world leaders setting up the global biodiversity assessment one of the first global environmental assessments leading after that to the millennium ecosystem assessment you know involving all countries and thousands of scientists and really making policy impact and now setting up you know the analog to the IPCC the IP best the intergovernmental science policy platform for biodiversity and ecosystem services just working tirelessly and yet I could hardly find that picture of him alone I got it off of the internet all the images I could find with him have him together with many other leaders bringing people in understanding one another here with Jane Lubchenco here with Jose Sarukhang in Mexico who by the way set up a natural capital project in Mexico by chance the same year with the same name as this natural capital project that we're all together for this week so with these inspiring people let's think about what we're what we're aiming to do together um driving the knowledge foundation you know there was a question would we ever put knowledge into action and it was with great excitement actually that some of the early pioneering cases of putting knowledge into action came to the forefront so on the left with Costa Rica's policy paying people incentivizing people to conserve and restore forest for a whole suite of benefits for climate security for aspects of water security and energy security um to help deliver hydropower for example um biodiversity and health ecotourism there were many dimensions of that program bringing the importance of our science home to people worried about all these other aspects of life and not thinking that much about biodiversity or or ecosystems as the fundamental assets that we um depend on for our well-being and China launching in the late 1990s the largest payment system in the entire world with today something like 200 million people being paid to restore ecosystems and then New York City became um also a really inspiring case when the city in modern times you know decided to instead of investing in a water filtration plant to invest in ecosystem restoration in better management practices among farmers and foresters and communities in the area where the water for the city um originates in order to secure a health and water supply so these cases everybody worried then that we would be paused on these cases there were not many more coming in the early moments but today that's that's changed again there there are thousands of cases emerging in many parts of the world thanks to the work of everyone here and many many others and the ambition then became by 2006 to start systematizing an approach that we could apply better in our globalized world all over the place so not meaning the exact same thing everywhere but a common language to talk to one another so countries could talk to one another about how we value nature in human development and a common framework in a way of approaching the problem that involved an acceleration and more ambitious science and other research and implementation goals so what we've really come to develop together through the natural capital project is an approach that involves engaging the scientists the technology leaders and the real world people driving implementation opening opportunity to change policy change finance change our culture change our way of thinking so we've come today now to have a huge group an ever building group of research institutions working very intimately together with implementing institutions all over the world so that the loop between the ideas in these different realms is really really tight and so like Ken Arrow and Hal Mooney we're having a lot of fun along the way and our work together involves setting up these powerful demonstrations ever grander in their goals in new places geographically and in new contexts different policy or finance and other contexts to drive change and in the course of doing all this to build up the capacity of people worldwide to advance this mission and to keep innovating and do things we're not even imagining today building especially this platform that has data making you know global environmental data making all of this much more accessible and feasible for people to use and new software that relates human well-being to the conditions the processes out in kind of across the planet in a lot of different contexts of ecosystems so relating you know developing the science to let us know how to achieve coastal protection in the face of climate change where and how much to invest in ecosystem conservation or restoration or how to engage people in food production in cities and in other places to secure one of humanity's most important activities and across a whole suite of realms trying to quantify excuse me what the return on investment will be in nature to achieve our goals of leaving a better planet for our kids and grand kids all of this packaged up into the software that you know well invest and now used ever more widely around the world to drive this change leading today to really trying to mainstream and scale this up and that's what this gathering is about we have incredible leaders coming together in major institutions that are letting us go beyond single countries and across often through the multilateral development banks and other more regional and global institutions to drive practices change in practices that will accelerate the shift that we're beginning to see in specific places all over the world last year we had a big focus on China welcoming the Chinese Academy of Sciences formally into the lead part of the partnership and this year we're highlighting Latin America and it's just a tremendous honor having so many people here from both of those regions and and many other places focusing on development planning in large form across countries and regions and especially also on livable cities those will be two major themes for this week and within those many other many other realms that we're advancing thinking especially with about our new software that will that's now in sort of testing form allowing sort of in us to inform leaders in cities of what the return on investment would be in green space in adding green space to promoting a wide range of benefits in transforming cities to livable unsustainable places I last year in welcoming the Chinese we had an incredible performance in the Bing concert hall on Tuesday night and we're going to be featuring this year a really special surprise performance so no pictures yet from Latin America so I I really hope you can make the evening tomorrow night in the Bing concert hall we'll be starting at 7 15 with doors open and the main presentation by Rodolfo Diazzo a leader here from Latin America and a real tour of culture and music and now finally what I'd love to do is welcome the core partners up here starting with the Stockholm Resilience Center Jan come all up and and everybody else please from the University of Minnesota from the Chinese Academy of Sciences from the Nature Conservancy from World Wildlife Fund and welcome everybody to give just a brief remark on what the partnership means and hopefully how you're awake and ready to go much better form than I please I'll stand to the side thanks the Stockholm Resilience Center is an international center of excellence for resilience and sustainability science it's a joint initiative between Stockholm University and the Bayer Institute of ecological economics at the Swedish Royal Academy of Science and the mission is to advance research for management and governance of the human dominated biosphere to secure the ecosystem services for human well-being and resilience for long-term sustainability since the launch in 2007 we developed into a world-leading institute for addressing the the complex challenges of the Anthropocene and since the very beginning we've done so in close collaboration with the partners here at the Natural Capital Project and thanks to the Wallenberg Foundation we've been able to deepen this friendship and really explore the synergies of working together as partnerships so it's a great honor to be here today and to celebrate but all of you here that the Stockholm Resilience Center and Bayer Institute will become official partners here at the Natural Capital Project. Good morning I'm Steve Pulaski from University of Minnesota it's really wonderful to have Stockholm Resilience Center as part of the part of the official family it's a we are growing our circle of friends and influence it's really wonderful to have have you involved University of Minnesota we've been a partner for quite a while now and we work with all of the different groups so with with Stockholm and China and TNC and WWF and of course with Stanford as well. One announcement we have a new associate director at the Institute on the Environment so the Natural Capital Project is housed at the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota and we have Melissa Kenny who is here yes right there so Melissa Kenny is the new associate director for research at the Institute on the Environment she will be instrumental going forward in working with NACAP so welcome Melissa thank you. Good morning everybody my name is Seema Paul and I'm representing the Nature Conservancy we work the Nature Conservancy works in 70 countries around the world we are a do tank we work on the ground and then leveraging that on the ground experience we bridge the conservation landscape with decision makers both in policy circles as well as in business circles we are very proud of our partnership with NACAP it has been going on since its founding I believe and NACAP is also very science led and it's backed by the equity of Stanford's brand but the robustness of its tools and outputs and its engagement process with decision makers not only ensures that it gets to the table with decision makers it also ensures that their interest is sustained and decisions are actually taken based on good science and good tools and that's the reason why we look forward to strengthening this partnership and building on it I think the challenges of people and nature broke no delays and it's very important for all of us to come together and sustain the partnership and in that vein I'm also very excited that we have new partners in the fold thank you good morning everyone I'm Nirmal Bhagavati from the World Wildlife Fund or WWF based in Washington DC but as many of you likely know we are a global organization as well and it has been a real privilege and a joy to be associated with the natural capital project we've been core partners with them right from the get go and and we've just had an amazing partnership whether it is helping in driving our field conservation around the world in Asia Africa Latin America the Arctic and elsewhere in terms of mainstreaming natural capital into policy and into finance and now now more recently into infrastructure financing and standards and there's so much more I could go on about but most of all I think it's just been wonderful to work with such a great group of colleagues you know these are some of the smartest and most driven people I've ever had the privilege to work with but at the same time also some of the kindest and most warm-hearted and joyful people that I've ever met in or outside of science so I think you're all in for a real treat you know learn share grow but most of all have fun while doing all that so thank you very much and welcome good morning everybody I'm an old father from Chinese Academy of Sciences and and we're glad to meet you in Stanford and Chinese Academy of Sciences is trying to push the transformation of green and inclusive growth in China during the process natural capital project partnership but only provided the important institution to provide the technological theoretical support in China and to in precondition the important concept they try to put the slash waters and the last mountains is the invaluable assets in China and but also provide the open a window for us to exchange the successful actions in China to push the frontiers in in in the world so we also hope to to work together with you to push the frontier in the future thank you thank you so much everyone welcome again warmest welcome