Ecosystem Services Flashcards
How are ecosystems being lost?
Agriculture,fish farming, biofuels, climate change, pollution, housing development, over exploitation.
Why do we need ecosystems?
They sustain the planet and human life, the benefits provided make life possible and worth living.
What did the millennium ecosystem assesment in 2005 say?
60% of global ecosystem Services are being degraded or used unsustainably
Dramatic ecosystem change within the last 50 years has contributed to gains in human well-being and economic development. But in some places degradation of services is already causing dramatic reduction in human well-being. Prevents a loss of natural assets and reductions in countries overall wealth.
Provisioning services?
Are essential goods that ecosystems provide to humans. Food, raw materials, fresh water, medicine
Supporting services?
Includes habitats, maintenance of genetic diversity, soil formation, photosynthesis.
Cultural services?
Includes recreation, physical and mental health, tourism, aesthetic appreciation, inspiration and spirituality. Not always fully valued
Regulating services?
Includes local climate, air quality, carbon sequestration and storage, moderation of extreme events, pollination, biological control, waste and water treatment
Forests?
Store 50% of global terrestrial carbon and produce essential atmosphere oxygen. Regulate terrestrial and atmospheric water supplies and cycles.
Help regulate global climate, sustain soils and reduce the risk of soil erosion. Trees in urban areas help reduce the urban heat island, absorb pollutants and improve air quality.
Cost of global annual loss of forest cover eat $2 trillion to $4.5 trillion in 2010 but only annual investment required to maintain forest cover 45. Billion
Shift in deforestation. Different now about what we are eating
Mangroves?
Forests/wetlands in tropical and sub tropical coastal areas
Grow in very salty and muddy . Extensive but under threat
They store carbon, buffer against storm, stabilise sediment therefore reducing erosion.
Salt Marshes?
Coastal habitats that exist due to the interplay between plants and sediments. Found in intertidal zone in temperate climate. Suffered loss globally extensive in the European Union they are a priority habitat regulatory services.
They store carbon, buffer against storms, attenuate waves, stores pollutants, also valued to help against flooding
What are the concerns?
They are parcels of nature. What about the right of the plants. Should the price decide or a public debate. Difficult to measure or quantify
Why do we need to valuate ecosystems?
To build sustainable and desirable future. Important relationship between humans and ecosystems. Can help raise awareness
To design appropriate intervention experiments need to inform policy and management.
To quantify ecosystem Services so far as possible and to map in a spatially explicit way across region.
What are the challenges with valuating ecosystems?
Need to include methods to assess benefits individuals that are not well perceived benefits to whole communities and benefits to sustainability. Can be dependent on individual perceptions of value.
Cannot provide benefits to people without people.
Applying part values to the whole ecosystem. It’s what is does overall, not just for people.
Without improved knowledge of the dynamic of social ecological systems it is impossible.
Common misconception with valuation of ecosystem?
That valuing ecosystems is the same as privatising them for trade markets. This works poorly and knowing the value is for effective management. Services are public goods.
What started the interest in valuing ecosystems?
2005 report helped bring it to wider audience. In mainstream media and business. Interest has grown rapidly
