Ecosystem services

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

• Provision of clean water and air
• Flood control
• Pollination of crops
• Mitigation of environmental hazards
• Pest and disease control
• Carbon sequestration
• Aesthetic, cultural and ethical values associated with biodiversity.

To look at the way in which ecosystems provide goods is popular now 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 used in a way that destroys them.

References

• Ecosystem Services: A Primer Archived 2010-07-26 at the Wayback Machine, 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 Archived 2006-12-09 at the Wayback Machine, The Ecosystem Marketplace