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• 1 media/Fishing_in_the_haor_with_Seine_net.jpg 2015-10-01T05:16:07-07:00 Ecosystem Services 20 The benefits people obtain from ecosystems. image_header 177366 2015-10-12T13:11:37-07:00

  Introduction

  Ecosystem Services are the benefits and resources that we get from the environment, such as clean water, wood for shelter, habitats for animals we eat, and pollination for plants that we eat. The "services" include:

  • regulation of weather extremes and impacts
  • seed dispersal
  • regulate drought and floods
  • protecting people from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays
  • cycle and move nutrients
  • soil formation
  • regulating rock and soil erosion
  • waste decomposition
  • regulating pests and disease
  • regulating climate
  • purifying air and water
  • pollinating crops and natural vegetation

  
  We already know that habitat degradation has been harming many of the world's ecosystems. In the 1990s many international environmental organizations wanted to figure out what was happening to ecosystems around the world. In 2000, the United Nations Secretary- General Kofi Annan called for an assessment of the ecosystems to see how we can conserve them and what sustainable use would look like. Over 1,300 people in 95 countries helped create an assessment of the world's ecosystems. A year leater in 2001, they came up with something now called the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (or the "MA"). The findings of the MA showed that human impact was depleting the world of its resources, but it is still possible to make things better.

  Ecosystem Services

  As organisms interact with each other and their environment, they produce biomass (producers), consume biomass (consumers), or decompose biomass (decomposers). Organisms also move nutrients in and out of living and nonliving things. For example, plants move water from the soil into the atmosphere, and take up carbon from the atmosphere. In doing this, plants provide materials to humans in the form of food, fiber, and building materials. Plants also contribute to the regulation of soil, air, and water quality. Humans benefit from all of these amazing things that plants do.
  
  So the MA researchers studied ecosystems and the services they provide, such as clean water, food, medicines, forest products, flood control, and other natural resources. The MA described these services as "ecosystem services," and defined ecosystem services as "the benefits gained by humans from ecosystems."

  • Ecosystem services = the benefits gained by humans from ecosystems

  The MA described four categories of ecosystem services: (1) provisioning, (2) regulating, (3) cultural, and (4) supporting services. The first three directly affect people, while supporting services are necessary to maintain them.

  1. provisioning services = products obtained from ecosystems (food, water, fuel, fiber, chemicals, genetic materials)
  2. regulating services = benefits obtained from regulation of ecosystem processes (regulation of climate, disease, water, and purification of water, and pollination)
  3. cultural services = nonmaterial benefits obtained from ecosystems (recreation, educational, scientific, cultural heritage, spiritual)
  4. supporting services = services necessary for the production of all other ecosystem services (soil formation, nutrient recycling, primary production)

  What are ecosystem services worth?

  It is impossible to attach a dollar amount to the value of nature, and ecosystem services seem to be "free" to us. But for some people to see the benefit of ecosystems, we have to estimate what the dollar value is for the services ecosystems provide and the costs of losing these services. Sometimes this is the only way to convince people that ecosystems are worth saving.
  
  Click here to see some examples of the value of ecosystem services.

  Ecosystem services can be cut off

  Unfortunately, we can take ecosystems for granted and can cause a lot of damage to the natural ability for the ecosystem to survive. This has the effect of cutting off ecosystem services for us. Negative human impact, such as habitat degradation and climate change, are just two ways in which humans are cutting off valuable services. Others include:

  • Pesticide and fertilizer runoff
  • Land, water, and air pollution
  • Introduction of non-native species
  • Overfishing
  • Destruction of wetlands
  • Soil erosion
  • Overpopulation
  • Urban sprawl
  Examples:
  Click here for information on the destruction of wetlands.
  Click here for information on mangroves vs. shrimp farms.

  Sources and Resources

  Actionbioscience - Ecosystem Services: A Primer, by the Ecological Society of America (2000)
  Millenium Ecosystem Assessment (2005)