Definition and Historical Development of Ecosystem Services
Human Dependence on the Environment
Modern life has, in many ways, detached human activity from the natural environment around it. This is particularly acute in the urban environment (where the vast majority of people live) resources from outside are generally supplied to the urban dwellers and there is little interaction with the natural world for the basics of survival (food, shelter).
However, developments in information sharing and media coverage has highlighted to the urban dwellers in the more economically prosperous population centres the environmental degradation, habitat loss and pollution occurring in the wider environment.
This has presented a dichotomy, where the rural poor in fundamentally agrarian areas, with less access to media coverage and information sharing technologies are less aware of the wider status of the environment. Their main concerns are those changes which directly impact upon their livelihoods and means of survival, that part of ‘the environment’ which they interact with as part of the fabric of their lives. In contrast, the more detached populations are far more conscious of global and widespread change.
This awareness of the global environment has spawned many initiatives and approaches to environmental protection in a top-down approach, manifested in a range of forms such as regulation, pollution control, and the legal protection of habitats and species. Although much of this control has had the desired effect, it has had a tendency to overlook the sensitivities of those who are closest to the issues being debated.
Industrial activities have in the past been curtailed in the name of environmental protection without any reference to the local loss of employment it engenders. Landowners have had their livelihoods controlled through the designation of their land as protected without their consent or consultation. For example, in June 2017 the California Farm Bureau and two ranchers’ associations sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, challenging a decision to designate more than 1.8 million acres of rural California as ‘critical habitat’ for three species of amphibians protected by the Endangered Species Act. The lawsuit asserts that the critical habitat designation subjected farmers ‘to substantial regulatory burdens’ which could put ranchers’ livelihoods at risk [1].
It is a result of this ideological divide, between environmental protection in all of its forms and the efforts of people to conduct economically advantageous activities, which has brought about the need for a framework which not only allows for the protection and preservation of the environment, but also allows the freedom for dependent communities to conduct economic activities which alter it.
It is without doubt that industrialisation leads to significant environmental change. Much of this is piecemeal in nature, as a particular technology develops it spawns a range of ‘projects’ which continue to alter the status quo. For example, the development of the internal combustion engine and the automobile not only led to a surge in petroleum sourcing, car factories, steel production, etc., but also generated government-sponsored infrastructure to allow the newly created transport to operate across continents. This industrial growth was not planned as a single entity, rather it developed in response to economically driven consumer demand and supportive government policy.
This type of technologically driven change resulted in a mindset that things were ‘done to’ the environment by mankind, and that it held dominion. Nature was being tamed by the achievements and endeavours of an industrialised society. Of course, society was not immune from the effects of their actions. In London, a high population density together with the widespread use of diesel-powered vehicles, coal-fired power stations and the burning of low-grade coal, combined with particular climatic conditions occasionally led to the production of a dense acidic fog (smog). Most notable of these events occurred in 1952 where a dense smog occurred which is thought to be responsible for up to 12,000 mortalities [2]. This event was directly responsible for the introduction of clean air legislation in the UK.
Despite these issues, for the urban industrialised societies which these advances had created, humanity was on an upward trajectory. Any incidental problems would likely be solved by appropriate technological development in the very near future.
In opposition to the idea of mankind’s dominion over nature, a more holistic view of the relationship between man and nature was developed. This is most readily expressed in the works of James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis, through the Gaia hypothesis [3]. This proposes that the living component of the earth (the ‘biosphere’) has a synergistic and self-regulating relationship with the non-living components of the environment, to form a complex system which maintains conditions suitable for life.
Apart from some philosophical criticisms of the theory, such as the implication that the planet is in some way ‘directing’ its regulatory feedback, there is one significant flaw in the concept. In considering the homeostatic and balanced view of the world presented in this hypothesis, the activities of mankind are at best ignored and at the most extreme considered to be an active interference in an otherwise functioning system. This is, therefore, merely ‘the other side of the coin’ in that it, like the mindset of industrialisation , considers mankind to be in some way distanced from the environment in which it operates.
This is clearly a significant contradiction when attempting to construct a holistic view of the biosphere (which must, by definition include mankind and its activities). By making human actions an exception, this approach either denies the place of humanity within the global system, or is a self-fulfilling rebuttal of the whole concept. Because, if mankind is an integral part of the whole biosphere, then how can its influence be anything other than a part of the regulatory mechanisms of the whole?
One further corollary of the idea that humanity is in some way a separate (and generally deleterious) influence on the planet, is that it opens the door for interventionism on a grand scale. The reasoning being that if human actions are the cause of the ‘problems’ then it is necessary to act again, in opposition to these damaging actions, to correct the system as a whole. It places mankind and its actions, guided by whatever motivation, as the fundamental governing force in the well-being of the environment.
The contrasting viewpoints of the relationship between mankind and the environment both share the view that mankind is separate from the rest of the natural world in terms of its activities. The commercialised ‘dominion’ oriented view is that the Earth represents a series of resources which are available for use in order to further human progress. The ‘Gaian’ view in reality sees mankind as an ignorant or errant product of a holistic system, which although it acts as though it is outside of the natural complex of interactions its activities can be seen as little more than acts of self-harm. These polarised worldviews bring into sharp relief the need for a balance to be reached which acknowledges the interrelationship and integration between society and its surroundings. There is a clear need to reach a compromise situation, one which acknowledges our dependence on the environment, but which also accepts that there are areas of this relationship where sourcing and use of natural resources benefits us as a species. The concept of Ecosystem Services is an attempt to achieve such a balanced view.
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
Much of the development of Ecosystem Services , as currently framed, has been derived from the framework initially presented in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) [4]. This project involved the work of more than 1360 specialists and assessed current knowledge, scientific literature, and data, comprising a synthesis of existing information at the time of compilation (2001–2005) rather than being new research. The study was instigated to look at ecosystem change and to consider the consequences of such change on human well-being.
When defining ecosystems, the MEA describes a number of very broad categories such as ‘woodlands’, ‘coastal’ and ‘drylands’. The majority of the terrestrial ecosystems in the MEA derive from the prevailing physical conditions and represent a coarse-grained version of the Holdridge life zone classification [5]. This system allows soil type and climax vegetation to be predicted by the prevailing climate, altitude and latitude. In the MEA , the remainder of the terrestrial land mass is classified as either urban or cultivated land, i.e. anthropogenic in nature. Rather than being functional ecological units, these ‘ecosystems’ can be more accurately defined as a series of biophysical types which act as receptor/provider systems for human activity.
One of the key propositions of the MEA was that people are an integral part of ecosystems, so a dynamic interaction exists between them and other parts of the environment. This approach echoes the view of the holistic ‘Gaian’ approach, but goes one step further, by embedding human activity into ecosystems as part of its intrinsic characteristics.
Although humans are a widespread species and can certainly be considered to have at least an indirect influence over all parts of the globe, the assertion that humans are an ‘integral part’ of an ecosystem is only true in those rare cases where a human population lives in isolation and has achieved a sustainable state with its environment without any ongoing directional anthropogenic change. It is only under these circumstances that the definition of an ecosystem (as used in the MEA ): ‘A dynamic complex of plant, animal and microorganism communities and their non-living environment interacting as a functional unit’ remains valid.
By including humans as a whole in this ‘functional unit’ it is necessary to stretch the definition of ‘ecosystem’ to cover the entirety of life as a single entity, as human activity represents a complex of global interactions which extends across all ecologically defined biotic boundaries.
This view runs counter to the observed evidence that, by and large, human activity leads to changes in ecosystems which are not in any form of equilibrium. This is equally true for the damage caused by resource exploitation as it is for conservation management activities which require ongoing, planned interventions to achieve an appearance of stability. This perspective, of man as some form of external agent, therefore applies equally to both the ‘Dominion’ and the ‘Gaian’ views of the human relationship to the earth.
Whether the effect is either moral or rational is the point of divergence, rather than whether or not mankind is acting upon the environment in a ‘natural’ manner. Human consciousness inevitably serves as a barrier between the inner self (that which perceives) and the outside world, including the environment (the subject of perception). Even if activities are immensely destructive, they cannot be considered to be unconscious. They can, however, be considered uninformed (or misinformed).
In addition to considering our relationship with ecosystems, the assessment was charged with identifying actions for the enhancement, conservation and sustainable use of ecosystems. This element of the project clearly, and in a somewhat contradictory manner, presents the role of mankind as an active, external influence upon the natural environment rather than being considered an integral part of it.
In terms of valuing the environment and ecosystems, the MEA asserts that the actions people take which maintain ecosystems result from the ‘intrinsic value ’ of species and ecosystems. This intrinsic value is defined as the ‘value of something in and for itself, irrespective of its utility for someone else’. This concept is something which is true only in relation to the motivation of the direct action involved. As a concept with broader applicability, it is purely philosophical in nature as it cannot be quantified or necessarily predicted. It is not an economic valuation in an analytical sense, although the statement sounds superficially to be a description of an economic reality.
Outside of actions of individuals, any action undertaken requires the expenditure of time, labour and materials, all of which fall firmly in the economic sphere and reflect directly the value which society places upon the tasks to be undertaken. Even if payment is not made directly (such as works undertaken by charita...