Introduction to the concept of ecosystem services from oceans

Humanity has always drawn sustenance from the ocean through fishing, harvesting and trade. Today 44 per cent of the world's population lives on or within 150 kilometres from the coast (United Nations Atlas of Oceans). However this fundamental connection between nature and people has only very recently been incorporated into trans-disciplinary thinking on how we manage and account for the human benefits we get from nature. Today, when a product taken from an ecosystem1, for example, fibres, timber or fish, enters the economic cycle (i.e., a part of the human system), it receives a monetary value that accounts at least for the costs associated with its extraction and mobilization. If that natural product is the result of cultivation, as in the case of agriculture, forestry and aquaculture, the monetary value also includes the production costs. However, the extraction of natural products and other human benefits from ecosystems has implicit costs of production and other ancillary costs associated with preserving the integrity of the natural production system itself. Traditionally these benefits and costs have been hidden within the “natural system,” and are not accounted for financially; such hidden costs and benefits are considered “externalities” by neoclassical economists. While the neoclassical economic toolbox includes non-market valuation approaches, an ecosystem services approach emphasizes that ‘price’ is not equal to “value” and highlights human well-being, as a normative goal. The emergence and evolution of the ecosystem services concept offers an explicit attempt to better capture and reflect these hidden or unaccounted benefits and associated costs when the natural “production” system is negatively affected by human activities. The ecosystem services approach has proven to be very useful in the management of multi-sector processes and already informs many management and regulatory processes around the world (e.g. United Kingdom National Ecosystem Assessment, 2011).

Ecosystems, including marine ecosystems, provide services to people, which are life-sustaining and contribute to human health and wellbeing (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005; de Groot, 2011). The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment defines an ecosystem as “a dynamic complex of plant, animal and micro-organism communities and their non-living environment interacting as a functional unit” and goes on to define ecosystem services as “the benefits that humans obtain from ecosystems” (p. 27).