Ecosystem services

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ecosystem services are processes by which the natural environment produces resources useful to people, akin to economic services. They include:

• Provision of clean water and air
• Pollination of crops
• Mitigation of environmental hazards
• Pest and disease control
• Carbon sequestration

Accounting for the way in which ecosystems provide economic goods is an increasingly popular area of development, catalyzed in particular by Gretchen Daily, a conservation biologist at Stanford University. The concept of ecosystem services is similar to that of natural capital.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment released in 2005 showed that 60% of ecosystem services are being degraded or used unsustainably.

[edit] See also

• Nature's services
• Ecological goods and services

[edit] References

• Ecosystem Services: A Primer, Ecological Society of America (ESA)
• The New Economy of Nature: The Quest to Make Conservation Profitable (ISBN 1-55963-945-8), Gretchen C. Daily and Katherine Ellison.
• Ecosystem Services: Backgrounder, The Ecosystem Marketplace

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