Even though our actions may seem small, they can have large effects. For example, over-fishing sharks can have catastrophic effects for reef ecosystems. By removing the top-level predator , the species it normally eats thrive and then over-populate.
This disrupts the whole reef ecosystem. Resilience of an ecosystem is its capacity to withstand stress and adapt to change without losing important species of plants or animals, or the connections between these. A resilient ecosystem can cope with environmental change, or recover from a disturbance. The variety of life in natural ecosystems is known as biodiversity. Biodiversity is believed to play a crucial role in resilience, by helping ecosystems cope with various natural and human stressors.
Ecosystems seem to be particularly resilient if there are many species performing the same essential function or service such as filtration or photosynthesis. Ready for a quiz? What ecosystems can you identify in the area where you live and what lives within these ecosystems?
Image: Sustainable Seas Challenge. An ecosystem also has consumers which eat producers and or other consumers. An ecosystem includes living and non-living elements. This diagram shows a marine ecosystem. It includes the living and non-living elements which interact within this ecosystem.
Image: Open University. Understanding nature in economic terms, while not perfect, allows us to put everything into the same comparison unit. Nature and money are often on competing terms, so to make a more level playing field, environmental economists have tried to bridge this gap by placing a monetary value on the benefits nature provides. Valuing nature in a way that can speak to decision makers, may help promote conservation efforts in the future.
It brings nature back into the cost-benefit discussion in a way that can be easily understood. Ecosystem Services help measure the true cost of industrial development. Often, the impact industrial development has on the economy and job creation overshadows the cost it will have on surrounding lakes, forests, keystone species, and so on.
Assigning a dollar value to these lakes and forests, and the Ecosystem Services they provide, helps adjust the cost benefit analysis by evaluating the negative effects development will have on the natural environment. Companies have also started to use Ecosystem Services in conservation offset planning, where they can buy and sell credits to offset a development or set aside land to meet a specific offset.
Farmers learned to avoid planting crops within 6 meters of the riverbanks and instead planted trees in those areas. The networks of tree roots along the river help prevent soil erosion and runoff from farms. Elsewhere in the Mau landscape, AWF worked with communities to popularize the use of fuel-efficient cookstoves and biogas digesters, both of which limit the need to encroach on the forest for firewood.
What is a biogas digester, you ask? Basically, this apparatus harvests methane from livestock waste. The gas burns cleanly and without odor, providing a sustainable alternative to charcoal for cooking. For those who previously burned charcoal as a form of income generation, AWF provided training and start-up capital for micro-enterprises such as beekeeping. Through these and other activities, local communities in the Mau and elsewhere are beginning to see the connection between their practices and the health of the ecosystem—and the services the ecosystem provides for them.
Happily, the importance of ecosystem services for human prosperity has gained some traction in recent years. While contributing to the conservation of a vital watershed, KVTC is also looking out for its own future.
KVTC serves as an example of a company that mitigates risks to its own operations by securing ecosystem services, which has the happy result of conserving key wildlife habitat as well. Throughout Africa, ecosystems deliver the natural resources and critical services that people and wildlife need to survive, and that economies need to grow.
Sign up for our newsletter. Stay Connected. Why We Need Healthy Ecosystems. About the Author. Wide-reaching benefits Rural communities typically find themselves on the front lines of ecosystem damage—and protection.
Restoring the Mau To break the cycle, AWF worked with the Kenya Forest Service and other local partners to help communities change some of their practices—benefiting the ecosystem, and, ultimately, themselves. Valuing ecosystem services Happily, the importance of ecosystem services for human prosperity has gained some traction in recent years. November 9, November 3,
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