Ecosystem services: A new framework for old ideas, or advancing environmental decision‐making? Learning from Canadian forerunners to the ES concept

Abstract

Frameworks of ecosystem services (ES) are promoted as a new and important way to recognize, understand, and account for nature's benefits. We questioned assertions of the novelty of ES ideas and conducted a comparative analysis of approaches in planning, landscape architecture, and sustainable forest management against the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment ES framework. We conclude that the newer Millennium Ecosystem Assessment ES framing may assist planners in connecting local land‐use change to human well‐being, assessing trade‐offs, and accounting for future uncertainty. Analogous approaches such as sustainable forest management offer practical insights, for example, about gauging, guiding, and reporting on sustainable use of ecosystems. We encourage environmental planners to engage with ES researchers to develop the approach and advance planning practice.