Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

Biodiversity (a shorthand for “biological diversity”) is the variety of life on Earth in all its forms. An ecosystem is a community of such life forms (organisms) and their interaction with the physical and chemical, natural environment. An example of an ecosystem is a coral reef, or a rainforest.[1]

Ecosystem services is a principle that describes the contribution of ecosystems in providing the fundamental essentials (services) to sustain human life as well as enhance human well-being. Broadly speaking, ecosystem services fall under 4 categories: provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting. One well-known example of an ecosystem service is the pollination of crops and plants by bees. Yet, bees actually serve a whole host of human needs - culture (religious and social life), food, material, and medicine[2]. Taking this example shows how vast and diverse ecosystem services actually are.

Other examples of ecosystem services include: production of food and water (provisioning); control of climate, control of disease (regulating); support of mental health and physical well-being (cultural). Importantly, unlike bees, the organisms that help provide ecosystem services are not always visible, and this means they are often omitted from environmental discourse[3]. The concept of ecosystem services aims to reverse this by calculating in economic terms, the value of nature. The results of doing this is recognition that ecosystems provide for humans in a magnitude that simply cannot be ignored. For instance, it is estimated that ecosystem services make a contribution to the global economy equal to 125-140 trillion USD per year.[4]

The biodiversity on Earth is rich, and that brings many benefits to humankind. But rising human population and demands of modern society (livestock farming, industry, housing and pollution) are putting a huge strain on the planet, on biodiversity (some claim the beginning of a ‘sixth mass extinction’[5]) and on the functioning of healthy ecosystems. Adopting the concept of ecosystem services, brings together economics and ecology in an attempt to reenforce the basic principal that humans and our economies are inextricably embedded within nature. Now, we must internalise this knowledge and reattach to nature – to transform our institutions, redirect production and consume patterns, adapt behaviour and reassess what constitutes economic ‘success’.

[1] The Dasgupta Review (2021)

[2] A review of ecosystem service benefits from wild bees across social contexts (2017)

[3] idem

[4] OECD: Biodiversity: Finance and the Economic and Business Case for Action (2019)

[5] The Guardian (2018): what is Biodiversity and why does it matter to us?