What are ecosystem services?

What are ecosystem services | Paying for ecosystem services | An example

The natural world does more than provide raw materials for human use. It also performs a host of services for people:

• Producing oxygen and storing carbon dioxide
• Purifying, cooling, and storing water
• Reducing or preventing damage from flooding
• Providing habitat for fish and wildlife
• Improving pollination
• Fertilizing the soil

Well-managed forests, functioning river floodplains, bands of diverse streamside shrubs and woodlands, and healthy wet prairies and wetlands provide vital services for people.

These ecosystem services are critical to human life. If they were not provided for us by the natural world, we would have to try to use technology to create them, at great difficulty and expense (if they could be replicated at all).

Instead, ecosystem services are provided for us through natural processes in intact ecosystems. When we conserve, restore, and protect our ecosystems, we are maintaining our ability to meet our own needs.