Ecosystem Services
A Thankless Job?
Originally posted by Nimisha Singla on August 6, 2020 for teachforgreen
The value of all of nature’s resources is completely lost upon some of us.
We might appreciate the river bodies for the water we use in our homes or even the trees which supply us with oxygen without charging a penny. We may appreciate mountains and beaches for their scenic beauty or birdsong which has inspired many musicians. Forests for their timber and medicinal plants, animals for their meat, the rains for our fields — all these services of nature we see clearly and might still be grateful for. But what about the tiny earthworm which burrows in and out of the soil to till the land for the farmer or the mighty elephant which can change entire waterways by eroding a tree from its path? The little bumblebee which happily hops from flower to flower sipping nectar and in the process unknowingly pollinating them or the house lizard which provides its insect control services for free?
There is so much in nature that is overwhelmingly underappreciated and unrecognized by all of us — and this goes for the author too — that to call our attention to nature’s gifts a new term had to be devised.
Ecosystem Services allows us to quantify and classify all the benefits we receive unwittingly from nature. The variety of life found on Earth and the quality of an ecosystem — be it in water or on land, big or small, has much value attached to it. Ecosystem services are broadly divided into four categories. These are as described below with examples –
Provisioning Services
The direct benefits which come to your mind — food, water, timber, fuel, medicines, etc. are the provisioning services. These are products and goods which we directly extract from nature.
Regulating Services
The processes which keep our world healthy, functional, sustainable, and habitable — carbon storage, air purification, groundwater recharge, pollination, decomposition, etc. by trees, water bodies, and all forms of life are a few examples of regulating services.
Cultural Services
The intangible nonmaterial benefits that nature bestows upon us by simply being a constant presence in our lives and unceasingly shaping our cultural, spiritual, and religious beliefs, intellectual prowess, creative abilities as well as being a source of inspiration and recreation.
Supporting Services
The most fundamental services without which all the aforementioned ones wouldn’t exist. Soil creation and retention, nutrient recycling, production of atmospheric oxygen, water cycle, photosynthesis, etc. are all examples of supporting services.
It is estimated that all of the world’s natural ecosystem services amount to $33 trillion. The methodology and factors considered in the study are much debated upon but the number does give us an idea about how much we could be indebted to nature. Really, the least we can do is not pollute and harm nature, and that too will only do us a good turn.
Is this a good way to make us more sensitive towards our actions? Is it counterproductive to have the concept of money attached to something so pure and distant from the human notions of business? Is the approach enough to encourage conservation? Well, that is for you to decide.
At this point in time, the author strongly feels that anything which makes us humans more mindful of our methods, based off on economic valuation or not, will only go a long way in the future.
References:
https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Understanding-Conservation/Ecosys
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https://www.greenfacts.org/glossary/def/ecosystem-services.htm
https://issues.org/putting-a-price-on-ecosystem-services/
