Nature is essential for human life. Nature provides us with water, clean air and food, and raw materials for medicines, industry and buildings. Our crops rely on insect pollination and the complex biological processes that create soil. Enjoying parks, landscapes and wildlife improves our health and well-being.
All of these benefits, known as ecosystem services, depend on a healthy environment.
What are Ecosystem Services?
Ecosystem Services are the direct and indirect contributions ecosystems (known as natural capital) provide for human wellbeing and quality of life.
This can be in a practical sense, providing food and water and regulating the climate, as well as cultural aspects such as reducing stress and anxiety. In fact, the vast number of services provided by ecosystems can be categorised into more manageable groups, of provisional, regulating, cultural, and the slightly more ambiguous, supporting services.
These services provided by ecosystems lead to benefits received by humans in the form of security, goods and materials, health and wellbeing.
Valuing Ecosystem Services
We all benefit from ecosystem services whether we recognise it or not. Most of us appreciate the ecosystem services that we come across in our daily lives, even if we don’t know their true value.
The loss of nature affects our economy, our culture and our daily life as individuals. Investing in nature – biodiversity and ecosystems, geodiversity and landscapes above and below the water – will help improve the quality of these services as well as securing them for future generations.
It is very difficult to put an economic value on nature and the services it provides. The overall value of nature to people and its economic importance have been shown by two studies:
While difficult to determine, working out an economic value for nature can help to highlight the importance of nature, and nature-based solutions, to our society and economy and ensure it is included decision-making.
For example:
- Scotland’s natural capital is worth at least £196bn, supporting 240,000 jobs.
- Insect pollination services in Scotland are valued at an estimated £43 million per year.
- Scotland’s beaches and salt marshes protect £13bn of coastal buildings and infrastructure, compared to £5bn protected by engineered sea walls.
The National Ecosystem Assessment shows that since the 1950s, changes to Scotland’s natural environment have led to a decline in the overall benefits from nature.
For nature, there have been adverse changes in:
- land use
- air, water and soil quality
- wildlife populations
- climate and weather
Many of these changes are driven by climate change and have both international and localised consequences for ecosystem services and how they benefit people. To look after nature, we must work with nature rather than against it, and work together, across all sectors, to make the most of nature’s benefits and build a sustainable future for Scotland.
