Ecosystem Services And Ecosystem Based Management

The above practices are mainly aimed at enhancing ecological resilience of species, ecosystem services, ecological connectivity, habitat creation, in-situ conservation, re-naturalization of policies, enhancing partnership between multiple stakeholders, and community engagement. The tools which can be used to promote ecological sustainability are biodiversity inclusive EIA, adaptive management, and use of revamped protocols for monitoring of the floral and faunal species.

Ecosystem management takes an integrated view of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, integrates ecological concepts at a variety of spatial scales, incorporates the perspectives of landscape ecology so that the range of possible landscapes in an ecosystem is recognized and preserved, and is an evolving paradigm incorporating the objective of ecological sustainability.

Ecosystems is the dynamic complex of plant, animal and micro-organism communities and their non-living environment that work together to form a functional unit and they are constantly changing due to the fluctuating equilibrium from natural stress and human action which has had adversarial impacts on ecosystems. This is evident in Minnamurra rainforest as human induced modifications and environmental stresses had resulted in a vulnerable ecosystem. Furthermore, the removal of factors that contribute to the vulnerability of an ecosystem is important as it affect the functioning of the ecosystem as processes are accelerated, biodiversity is decreased which greatly affects humans. Despite the negative effects caused by humans, they have discovered that ecosystems are susceptible from harm caused by natural environmental factors or human impacts and realised the importance of protecting and managing ecosystems therefore have implemented management strategies that are supposed to prevent further detriment and as a consequence may induce resiliency.

Chapin, F.S., Carpenter, S.R., Kofinas, G.P., Folke, C., Abel, N., Clark, W.C., …& Swanson, F.J (2010). Ecosystem stewardship: sustainability strategies for a rapid change planet.

As a set of interacting species found in the same place and functioning together, this enabling life to persist. That is essentially the definition we used earlier. A problem with this term and definition is that it is often difficult in practice to know the entire set of interacting species. A resource, in ecological terms, is something such as food, water, habitat, and sunlight, prey that is required by an organism to perform a vital function such as grow or reproduce. A consumer is an organism that consumes a resource such as predators and herbivores (Botkin, 2015). Ecosystems are collections of plants, animals, and micro-organisms interacting among themselves and with their habitat. While most ecosystems are hard to define and draw rigid boundaries around, scientists characterize them by their rock and soil types, by water features such as streams and ponds, and by the common plant and animal species which make their homes within these areas. This, most interactions between animals involve one or more competitor species competing for a resource. Ecosystem management also recognizes the influence of natural disturbances such as fire and windstorms, accepting that natural ecosystems are dynamic and change over time. Biological production is the capture of usable energy from the environment to produce

Integration of ecological, social, and economic goals and recognition of humans as key components of the ecosystem………………………………………………………..............3

Goldman indicates that in order to place value on goods and services humans use, costs such as production and transportation can be used to link people’s decisions with natural services. Water is a resource that is crucial to life and is used everywhere, including for washing jeans and making coffee. In order to compare and contrast various processes, Goldman points out that prices should be placed on services. She begins by discussing the importance of ecosystem services for human development, and then links services to economic values. She introduces important, yet underrated, protection services like mangroves, or coastal forest systems, to help reduce damage caused by tsunamis and storms. Goldman makes a strong argument when she asserts that decision-making involved with nature would be made simpler and more informative with calculated costs and benefits. For instance, one cannot decide between buying a coastal home or cutting down mangroves to sell more fish unless the values of each action are accounted for. By assessing the lowest cost options to provide access to clean water, humans have had great success in taking care of ecosystems in South America. Thus, assessing economic values of ecosystem services holistically provides the most efficient low-cost alternatives and best improve people’s

For convenience the review is organized around the following domains: ecosystem, cultural system, change, and research trends and needs. An ecosystem is composed of abiotic and biotic components which interact through the flow of energy, matter, and information, and all of this varies in space and time. (67)

When it comes to the ecosystem perspective, it is about interactions within the environment. The illness my grandmother has is Diabetes, I believe a support group would be beneficial for her to meeting others with the same illness, and learning more about her illness. Even though my grandmother knows about her diabetes on what was told to her by her primary doctor, engaging with other with the same illness would be informative for her about her diabetes. By relating the ecosystem perspective with her illness, it would be best in know how she interacts with others, and within the environment. As to my grandmother being active due to her illness

Multifunctional management would not only satisfy economic and social demand without any loss of environment values, but also provide alternative options or development potential for future generations. It is essential to understand today’s needs and values of public lands and recognize economic benefits and social benefits of public lands in modern society.

Ecosystem services are defined as the direct and indirect benefits to human well being that are derived from ecosystems and ecosystem function (Gomez-Baggethun and Barton 2013, TEEB 2011), or in other words, “the conditions and processes through which natural ecosystems, and the species that make them up, sustain and fulfill human life” (Daily, 1997, p. 3). The ecosystem service framework may be used to assess present day function, monitor change over time, and inform future planning, conservation, and restoration to maximize the ecosystem function and services generated at multiple scales (Daily et al. 2009; Sukhdev et al. 2010).

First of all an ecosystem is all the biotic things that live in one area and the chemical and physical environment that surrounds them. Usually in a sustainable ecosystem there is everything that the ecosystem needs already provided within it. So what does an ecosystem need? Well first of all there needs to be an abundance of lots of biodiversity, which means that there are multiple different types of plants and animals as well as various different species. Because there is so much different flora and fauna

Collaborative Research. Whereas many studies have assessed the ecological and socioeconomic effects of the GEP, they are mostly scattered, fragmented, short-term, and opportunistic. For example, although the GEP is concurrently implemented in many regions (Fig. 1), they are rarely discussed together. Little is known about its ecological and socioeconomic effects from the view of whole country. Therefore, the future successes of the GEP could benefit from a national network of collaborative research on ecosystem services, with a particular focus on the GEP. The network would coordinate and promote regional research, which usually focused on parts of Chinese grasslands areas due to limited scientific funds, on important questions from local to

The concept of sustainability in relation to ecosystem management states basically that “a natural resource should not be managed primarily to satisfy human economic interests nor valued mostly in dollar terms.” (Rosenbaum 25) In respects to lakes, rivers, wetlands and other natural resources this means that they should be managed to protect all their natural benefits such as supplying clean drinking water to communities, providing a habitat for local wildlife and a use for recreational human uses. Another assertion of ecosystem management is that endangered natural systems “should be restored or protected as a whole” (Rosenbaum 25) meaning the same organization should manage the entire system to avoid different groups controlling it with

The number of people living in urban areas is dramatically increasing across the world. Currently, 75 % of people live in cities in the developed world, (Bernhardt E.S. and Palmer M.A, 2007) despite such high percentage many do not get access to the green and blue spaces available, in other words cannot interact with nature. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency green spaces are ‘land that is partly or completely covered with grass, trees, shrubs or other vegetation’ (Environmental Protection Agency, 2014) This includes community gardens, parks as well as cemeteries. (Environmental Protection Agency, 2014) On the other hand, blue spaces include rivers, canals and lakes. (Sally, M, 2010) As urbanisation increases, it will pose a greater threat to nature such as pollution, habitat destruction, erosion and colonisation of native species. There are various ways to engage with nature. However, one reason for green and blue spaces not being utilised effectively by people may be due to people being unaware of the values that these have and the crucial functions they undertake in the ecosystem such as recycling nutrients and controlling the hydrological cycle.