ES - ECOSYSTEM SERVICES

Question 1

What are the 6 key principles of the ecosystem approach?

Answer 1

1. management within natural limits
2. management for the long term
3. management for the micro and macro scales
4. account for true value
5. make trade-offs clear
6. involve stakeholders in decisions

Question 2

what are some ecosystem service definitions?

Answer 2

• the conditions and processes through which natural ecosystems, and the species that make them up, sustain and fulfil human life
• the benefits people obtain from ecosystems
• aspects of ecosystems that, actively or passively, produce human wellbeing

Question 3

what is an ecosystem? what are the 3 features of them?

Answer 3

a dynamic complex of plants, animals, and microorganism communities & the non-living environment, including humans, interacting as a functional unit.
- they vary in size
- they share the basic functional units
- boundary should be clear where a number of discontinuities coincide e.g. in the distribution of organisms, soil types etc.

Question 4

what is the ecosystem approach, as defined by the Convention of Biological Diversity?

Answer 4

• a strategy for the integrated management of land, water, and living resources that promotes conservation & sustainable use in an equitable way
• the application of the ecosystem approach will help to reach a balance of the 3 objectives of the Convention; conservation; sustainable use; and the fair & equitable sharing of the benefits

Question 5

what are the 3 key concepts of ecosystem services?

Answer 5

1. if nobody benefits, there’s no ecosystem services
2. ecosystem services are not the ecosystem that provided them. they are what the ecosystem does
3. ecosystem services can be one of these economic goods: private good; common-pool resource; toll or club good; and public good