Question

- In your OWN WORDS, explain how the use of ecosystem services can be misleading for restoration or conservation.

- For each of these points, give an example of where the use of ecosystem services as a measure of success would be misleading.

Answer 1

ecosystem services in a holistic social-ecological system understanding would helpto overcome justified criticisms of a too narrow perspective on the real values of nature.
It is correct, that a monetary value cannot be as-
signed in any case to nature and that using exclusively monetary values would bear the risk to ignore intrinsic values of nature and the multifaceted value perceptions of different actors .It is not generally true that using ecosystem services would lead to the misunderstanding that ecosystem degradation and biodiversity losses can be purchased and that payments for ecosystem services would generally lead to a loss in biodiversity or spatial inequities. Calculation of biotope values as basis for compensation measures in environ-
mentally relevant projects whose impact assessment is legally framed practices already the approach to assign monetary values to ecosystems and pay for their destruction through ascertainable measures . Such measures can include investments in forests to improve their structure and ecological value , require the re-establishment of the same biotope with
the same size elsewhere or of a ‘more valuable’ biotope that can then also be smaller than the damaged one . The concept of ecosystem services embedded in the principles of landscape ecology could greatly help to
improve such compensation schemes that usually ignore the functional connectivity of ecosystems and thus do not really counterbalance ecological degradation and biodiversity losses . Furthermore, payments for ecosystem services could help to balance conflicts between private economic considerations of land owners such as maximum harvest and revenue and nature conserva-
tion objectives, which might be endangered through the invasive potential of economically highly interesting, fast growing, but non-native tree species.
Ecosystem services as such require a demand or a consumption, otherwise they are not a ‘service’, but a ‘function’ that exists without being related to a concrete benefit, but does as such not minder the value of an ecosystem or a land-
scape or a natural resource. The term
‘service’ that is criticised by the authors, implies instead that
also ‘non-resource-based’ benefits exist that can be simply enjoying nature (as a cultural service) or ecological processes that add to storing carbon in vegetation and soils as a contribution
to global climate regulation. Consequently,
the use of ecosystem services as a decision criterion requires even more the conservation and/or sustainable management of nature than a purely resource-oriented view. Losses in regu-
lative capacities that increase the vulnerability against disturbances and accelerate the impact of extreme events cannot be assessed from a resource-oriented point of view. Flooding
events, for instance, result from processes at the ecosystem and the landscape scale, so that the contribution of each single ecosystem cannot be evaluated as simple and clear as being the benefit of a natural resource-oriented point of view.Nowadays, services provided by artificial land cover and infrastructure so
called ‘non-services’ need to be equally
considered in their landscape context and emphasise even more, that a purely nature resource-oriented view would be too limited. To take better into account the ambivalent nature
of services, it would be even recommendable to replace the term ‘ecosystem services’ by ‘social-ecological system services’ that express better that services are already a translation of nature´s intrinsic values towards human perception and understanding of nature .

Finally, we should not forget that biodiversity as
subject of conservation aims implies understanding the role
of disturbances – natural and human ones included. Many ecosystems in cultural landscapes that are considered to be
particularly valuable due to their high or specific species diversity such as forest meadows and coppices, heathlands, or extensively used pastures in the mountains were developed in
a co-evolutionary approach between human interventions and natural processes. They provide habitats to meanwhile rare species. In their case, an intended human benefit created through a particular management form (grazing, short-rotation) resulted in an unintended, but welcome benefit for rare species and led often to the decision to declare such area as nature conservation hot spots. On the other hand, ecosystem processes and functions might provoke both, desirable and detrimental effects, so-called disservices. For instance, economically highly important plant groups such as conifers or many cereals rely on the wind dispersal of their pollen (anemochory), which creates a welcome service (pollination) for successful farming or forestry. On the other hand, this completely natural process might impede many persons that suffer from allergies .Ecosystem services are certainly not the one-and-only concept to communicate why nature conservation, restoration and concerns about biodiversity losses must be respected
in all policy sectors and concepts for sustainable development . However, they urge us to look for hidden trade-offs from a comprehensive and holistic perspective that keeps open what kind of values we prefer to use. Consequently, it is not the application of ES in planning, management and policy consulting that should provoke
criticism, but how they are implemented. A too limited selection of ecosystem services in consulting policies and planning that considers preferably those services that are easy to be
assessed (data availability) or are considered to be most important from today’s point of view (intergenerational equity)
would invalidate the holistic approach of ecosystem services.

What we really need to bring forward the unstability and relevance of the concept and operationalise its mainstreaming in planning and policy consulting are, therefore, agreements on best practices in assessments. These should ensure that all aspects of nature and its
values intrinsic ones and those with directly measurable benefits for human well-being are equally and sufficiently considered .