Marine Ecosystem Services

From fresh drinking water to lumber and seafood, humans derive benefits (or ecosystem services) from ecological systems. These services are produced by plants, animals, microbes and people interacting with one another and the physical environment. Scientists recognize four categories of ecosystem services: provisioning services such as food, fuelwood, fiber, and water; regulating services such as the regulation of climate, floods, coastal erosion, drought and disease; cultural services including recreational, spiritual, religious and other nonmaterial benefits; and supporting services such as nutrient cycling and photosynthesis. Some key benefits provided by the ecosystem services of functioning marine systems include healthy seafood, clean beaches, stable fisheries, abundant wildlife, and vibrant coastal communities.

Ecosystem services have been the focus of a number of international and national reports. For more information please follow the links below:

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

Launched by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in 2001 and completed in 2005, the Millennium Assessment brought together over 1360 leading scientists from 95 countries to assess the status of the world's ecosystems, the services they produce, and how changes in the global environment are affecting human well-being. They found that 60% of the services we receive from ecosystems—benefits like fresh water and timber—are degraded. There are numerous ways to change our practices and policies to ensure the long term delivery of these benefits. To read reports on specific ecosystems and recommendations of the Millennium Assessment, please go to their web page www.maweb.org.

The Ocean Commissions Reports

In 2003 and 2004, the Pew Oceans Commission and the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy released reports cataloguing the state of the United States' ocean resources and recommendations for a new national ocean policy framework. Both Commissions reached similar conclusions: a combination of human activities on land, along the coasts, and in the oceans is unintentionally, but seriously, affecting coastal and marine ecosystems. These pressures on coastal resources compromise the ability of the oceans to provide benefits to human populations, with impacts that reach far beyond coastal regions.

Further reading on this topic

The following citations, in addition to those above, are meant to provide a general overview of the main issues surrounding Marine Ecosystem Services. For more information, or for more specific questions, please contact Karen McLeod.

Barbier, EB and GM Heal. 2006. Valuing ecosystem services. The Economists' Voice 3(3), Article 2.

Daily, GC, T Söderqvist, S Aniyar, and 14 others. 2000. The value of Nature and the nature of value. Science 289:395-396.

Kareiva, P and M Marvier. 2007. Conservation for the People.
Scientific American: 50 - 57.

Kremen, C and RS Ostfeld. 2005. A call to ecologists: Measuring, analyzing, and managing ecosystem services. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 3:540-548.

Mooney, H, A Cropper, and W Reid. 2005. Confronting the human dilemma: How can ecosystems provide sustainable services to benefit society? Nature 434:561-562.

UNEP-WCMC. 2006. In the front line: Shoreline protection and other ecosystem services from mangroves and coral reefs. UNEP-MCBC, Cambridge, UK.