Ecosystem Services
Ecosystems provide services necessary for human well-being such as clean water, clean air, climate regulation, food provisioning, but also culturally valuable services. Economic vulnerability and poverty go hand in hand with environmental vulnerability; they feed on each other.
Investments in restoring, maintaining and utilising ecosystem services can act as a way of redistributing resources to communities living in poverty. An Ecosystem Services Approaches to Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) stresses the links between ecological sustainability and livelihood opportunities through a focus on tools such as valuation and payment schemes for ecosystem services.
The Ecosystem Services Approach
So far, most attempts to reverse the decline in ecosystem services have targeted particular sectors – for example, water, agriculture and forests – rather than looking at these collectively and/or in their interaction. The general failure of this sectoral approach drives the request for a shift in thinking about environmental management. A more holistic view of the links between ecosystem service delivery and human needs – an ecosystem approach – may be our last and best hope for living sustainably on our threatened planet.
"The ecosystem approach is a strategy for the integrated management of land, water and living resources that promotes conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way..."
The Convention on Biological Diversity recognizes that humans are an integral component of many ecosystems.
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment typology
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment uses an analytical framework from a human perspective, by relating the linkages between ecosystem services and human well-being to the benefits people obtain from ecosystems.
Regulating services
The benefits obtained from the regulation of ecosystem processes, including, for example, the regulation of climate, water and some human diseases.
Provisioning services
The products obtained from ecosystems, including, for example, genetic resources, food and fiber and fresh water.
Supporting services
Supporting services are: Ecosystem services that are necessary for the production of all other ecosystem services. Some examples include biomass production, production of atmospheric oxygen, soil formation and retention, nutrient cycling, water cycling and provisioning of habitat.
Cultural services
The non-material benefits people obtain from ecosystems through spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, reflection, recreation, and aesthetic experience, including, e.g., knowledge systems, social relations and aesthetic values.
Linkages between ecosystem services and human well-being. Klick to enlarge
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The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment evaluated the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being. From 2001 to 2005 more than 1,360 experts worldwide were involved in the MA. Their findings provide a state-of-the-art scientific appraisal of the condition and trends in the world’s ecosystems and the services they provide, as well as the scientific basis for action to conserve and use them sustainably.
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Green Facts - popularised synthetis of the MA
UNEP Ecosystem Managment Programme
