Dear ESP community,

The Ecosystem Services Partnership (ESP) 2026 Prague European conference finished last week. What a week! You had the pleasure and experience of enjoying a vibrant community full of energy and enthusiasm, with a lot of youth (not me, certainly :D), networking, and fun. As a conference reflection, I would like to simply share my two thoughts with you, without any further intention*. This is my small retribution to a person, Dolf, and a community that gave me so much over the past years. I wouldn’t be the scholar I am without the ESP.

The ESP started as a small group of people interested in ecosystem services science within an already large ecological economics community. It was led until very recently by an outstanding scholar and the kindest person, Dolf de Groot. For those of you who have the privilege of knowing him personally, you might agree that we owe him the engaging community we have, the result of the systematic effort Dolf put into the ESP over the years. Many of us owe him far more…

This ESP Prague 2026 marks the first ESP Europe conference without Dolf, as he is enjoying his well-earned retirement from the ESP. It felt nostalgic to me at times.

Dolf’s farewell at the ESP Europe 2024 in Wageningen, with Wieteke and Bob.

Without its father’s guidance, the ESP is facing uncertain times. It will literally become an independent international community this year. Entering the big leagues of independence is exciting but scary. For those of you who attended the general assembly on Wednesday, 20.05, you might remember the roadmap presented, discussed, and agreed by acclamation that day. In October 2026, the ESP will call for the election of a new Steering and Executive Committee to lead the ESP’s future.

My first message is about membership: the ESP needs more members. We have experienced a steadily increasing number of people attending our conferences. The ESP Prague is proof of that, with more participants than ever before, over 600. However, this strong interest in our conferences, it is not reflected in the memberships. There is a tendency to attend the conferences regularly, enjoy our vibrant community, but not enrol as members. The truth is that to keep the ESP alive, strengthen our activities, and deliver our message to society, we need more members. As a former ESP executive member, I can tell you that without more members, the ESP is at risk of disappearing. My first message is, please become a member! An individual, or even better, convince your institution to join us.

As important as having more members, the ESP needs leadership. We need a new generation of young scholars to lead our community in a new process towards the future, to adapt to new times and become a relevant international voice, to deliver our message to society: that ecosystems make fundamental, often neglected, contributionS (sic) to human well-being. To deliver that message, we need new leaders, we need you! My second message is, please engage in the elections, so we can get a new board with the best of us!

For me, it was once again a pleasure to meet old friends, make new ones, and share unforgettable moments with many of you in my beloved Praha. It has also been a moment of reflection on what is to come, and that is the reason for this post. You have felt the energy, the enthusiasm, the warmth of our community.

Now is your time to help us take the ESP to the next level. The future is bright.

* for my suspicious friends, I won’t participate in the elections 🙂