Basic info:
“…there is money to be made in projects that embrace environmental goals.”[1]
Ecosystem services are essentially the ways in which humankind benefits from the natural ecosystems within which we reside. The term is meant to frame these benefits as economic instruments which make use of environmental assets (forests, bodies of water, organisms, etc) in both financially and environmentally favorable ways. This concept was popularized in the early 2000s after the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment reported how alarmingly close humankind is getting to reaching the limits of the various natural resources needed for survival at the current rate. This urgency for more sustainable human infrastructure helped incentivize environmental thinking within the prevailing capitalist system, as harnessing the systems already inherent in our natural ecosystems both saves money and makes sure the ecosystem is maintained, thus giving “the invisible hand of free market economics a green thumb”[1].
There are 4 types of ecosystem services:
- Provisioning: supplying for human use (i.e, food, water)
- Regulating: control of human/environmental welfare (i.e, air and water purification)
- Supporting: sustaining/maintaining ecosystems (i.e, crop pollination, nutrient cycling, soil formation)
- Cultural: spiritual and recreational benefits (i.e, sports, ecotourism, use of nature in artistic expression)
Response:
“Many important watersheds are threatened by development: not only that of New York, but also the watersheds of Rio de Janeiro, the basin of the river Paraibo do Sul in the Mata Atlantica coastal forest in Brazil (a biotically unique region whose conservation would convey benefits far in excess of the value of the water provided), and the watershed for parts of Buenos Aires. Arrangements of the type discussed here could be applied to the watersheds of some of the world’s largest cities. In the United States, more than 140 cities are considering watershed conservation as an alternative to water purification. Not only could this be cost-effective, it could also stimulate conservation and a coming together of market forces with the environment.”[1]
The article, Economic Returns form the Biosphere, mainly discusses New York City’s restoration of the ecosystem regulating services provided by the Catskill watershed in ~1996. The authors describe how the city’s water dropped below levels deemed acceptable by the EPA due to illegal dumping/pesticides being introduced into the water from the soil of the city’s main water source, the Catskill watershed. The city managed to save billions of dollars by working to revive the watershed’s natural water filtration capabilities instead of building new water treatment facilities.
I want to better understand how all the components in this system surrounding this environmental service interact. Here, I mapped out the interactions in a flowchart illustrating the movement of the provisioning service (supplying water to NYC residents) and the accompanying cost of the service ($1-1.5b natural capital).
This is an oversimplification though. For example, this diagram doesn’t show how the watershed restoration also benefited its biodiversity support and carbon sequestration (as watersheds are typically forests) services/capabilities, thus also affecting other environmental service cycles.
[1] Economic Returns from the Biosphere, Graciela Chichilnisky1 & Geoffrey Hea1, 1998