[PCA] NEWS: Depending on Nature: Ecosystem Services for Human Livelihoods

[Olivia Kwong]

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1290207/depending_on_nature_ecosystem_services_for_human_livelihoods/

Depending on Nature: Ecosystem Services for Human Livelihoods
Posted on: Tuesday, 11 March 2008, 06:00 CDT
By Mainka, Susan A McNeely, Jeffrey A; Jackson, William J

A new paradigm is emerging in the world of environmental conservation. 
Conservationists have traditionally spoken of conserving the building 
blocks of nature-genes, species, and ecosystems, along with the air, 
water, and land with which these interact. But this approach has not 
captured the interest of those who influence the activities that degrade 
these building blocks. The drivers of degradation-including habitat loss 
and fragmentation, overexploitation, invasive species, pollution, and 
climate change- continue their march, and the results have been documented 
regularly in updates of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and other 
reports on the status of the environment: continuing loss of biodiversity 
and accelerating threats to nature. Although the effects of climate change 
and the emerging challenge of how to address it are now making front-page 
headlines, the underlying role of biodiversity, both as victim and 
potential solution, has yet to receive adequate attention. 
Conservationists have been seeking language that will make the importance 
of a healthy environment more obvious and relevant to the politicians, 
economists, business people, and development specialists who make 
decisions upon which nature's future depends. One such concept is embodied 
in the idea of ecosystem services as the benefits that nature provides to 
people. Ecosystem services incorporate the language of economics and 
business, through their valuation, and the language of development, 
through their support for human well-being. Efforts to support the 
long-term sustainable supply of those services are as important to human 
well-being and survival as they are for nature itself.

See the link above for the full article text.