Ecosystem Services Flashcards
Define ecosystem services
The contributions of ecosystem structure and functioning (and other inputs) to human well-being; where ecosystem and society find overlap).
There are 4 main kinds: regulating, provisioning, cultural, and habitat. ES services act as a tool we can use to understand our dependence on nature.
Define regulating services
“Regulating” refers to how the ecosystem keeps some elements in balance, so this could include the oxygen and carbon dioxide level regulation from plant respiration and photosynthesis, and also carbon sequestration through plant life, and the ocean.
It can also include erosion defenses, and waste treatment/ cycling.
Define provisioning services
These refer to the products we obtain from the ecosystem, such as gathering food from plant life, hunting or fishing, using coal for energy, or even water to drink.
Define cultural services
Cultural services are the non-material benefits we get from the ecosystem services, such as enjoying the aesthetics of a beach, mental well-being from being in nature, or using natural spaces for recreation. Tourism, sport, traditions.
Define habitat services
This is where the ecosystem structures provide safe habitats for resident and migratory species. Humans use a combination of these habitat services for shelter and provisioning services to obtain or create building materials.
What are some advantages and disadvantages of the ecosystem services approach?
While they can help people to realise all of the ways in which nature and the environment supports human life, we can also end up seeing these in terms of their economic value, which also affects the way we may see sustainability and affect how we see our own role within the ecosystem, as ES services place the human outside of the ecosystem.
Describe some of the ecosystem services of the Venice Lagoon.
How do boundaries work in ecosystems and ES services?
We tend to assign boundaries for for convenience, analysis, or manipulation. In nature there are no such boundaries - for example how aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems interconnect. But furthermore, it means that since these boundaries are created, they can be changed depending on requirements, values, or desired use. For example, while fish as food may have fallen into provisional services, fishing for recreation or tradition falls into cultural services.
How do humans access ES services?
Some of the services happen without human intervention; for example many of the regulating services. However others need direct human intervention and exploitation to be utilised, for example fishing for recreational or traditional purposes; to enjoy the aesthetics of nature first we have to go there physically, or deforestation for agricultural space or in order to use the wood for building or energy use.
What’s the difference between ES services and Nature’s Contribution to People?
Nature’s Contribution to People redesigned the ideas of ES services in order to move away from seeing nature through it’s economic value.
-It breaks elements and relationships down by alternative values, like Instrumental and Relational values, which are both anthropocentric (habitat, food, social, cultural), compared to Intrinsic values, which are non-anthropocentric (Gaia, animal rights, genetic diversity).
