Ecosystem Services and Sustainability

Ecosystem Services is fast becoming a new wave in identifying and framing the processes and resources that natural ecosystems provide. By understanding the world through an Ecosystem Services perspective, we can begin to appreciate the depth, complexity and interconnectedness of the world’s ecosystems. As a result, we can better understand how our decisions and actions as people impact our world. The term Ecosystem Services was thrust into the spotlight in a unprecedented report published in 2005, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, which has helped identify the “state” of many of our worlds ecosystems.

I have been working with Dr. Kai Chan and numerous others in the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability to help express methods for including Ecosystem Services into sustainability decision-making. As a group, we have worked alongside the University of British Columbia’s Office of Sustainability to see how Ecosystem Services thinking can work within the university decision-making processes.