How dis-services illuminate divergence between “nature’s contribution to people” and “ecosystem services” – an assessment of Empetrum nigrum

Gross ecosystem product (GEP) assessment can convert physical quantities of nature’s contribution into monetary units, so that measure regulating nature's contribution to people (NCP) with a unified standard to support decision-making. The nature's contributions and people's needs are often spatial mismatch, while most of assessments lacked the integration of NCP and GEP in a spatial flow view, which is not conducive to the cross-regional policy making of "who benefits, who pays". Taking six typical cities of the Loess Plateau as a case, we valued the GEP of four material NCPs and three regulating NCPs from 2000 to 2020. We established spatial flow allocation methods for water supply, soil retention, sandstorm prevention to decompose the GEP contributions of the three regulating NCPs to the neighboring and downstream cities, so as to combine the nature's contributions located in the middle reaches and the neighboring and downstream people's needs in the form of monetary value. The results show that the GEP of the six cities in the Loess Plateau grew from 20.22 billion Yuan in 2000 to 36.98 billion Yuan in 2020, with the material NCP growing from 10.54 billion Yuan to 26.95 billion Yuan, and the regulating NCP growing from 9.67 billion Yuan to 10.03 billion Yuan. In the extraterritorial flow of regulating NCPs, GEP for water supply NCP and soil retention NCP flowed to downstream of the Yellow River, GEP for sandstorm prevention NCP flowed to neighboring cities to the east and south of the study area. The flow of NCPs exhibited spatial heterogeneity, with the city benefiting from the greatest variety of NCP types differing from the city benefiting from the highest flow value of NCPs. The assessment demonstrates the feasibility of integrating the NCP and GEP indicator systems to spatially guide cross-regional payment for ecosystem services policy.

Background:The concept of Nature's Contributions to People (NCP), introduced by IP-BES in 2018, represents a significant expansion beyond the ecosystem services (ES) paradigm by acknowledging the material, regulating, and non-material dimensions of humannature relationships.NCP emphasizes pluralistic and participatory approaches, integrating indigenous and local knowledge systems with scientific perspectives to provide a more holistic understanding of sustainability.Despite its relevance, NCP has seen limited adoption in South Korea and has been inconsistently translated in existing literature.Results: Recent empirical studies highlight NCP's flexibility across ecological, agricultural, urban, and public health contexts, demonstrating how it captures cultural and relational values often overlooked in ES frameworks.At the policy level, NCP has been embedded into global frameworks such as the convention on biological diversity and the sustainable development goals, signaling institutional recognition of its utility for governance.However, challenges remain in operationalizing NCP, particularly regarding methodological innovations for assessing non-material contributions and building institutional mechanisms for effective integration.Comparative analysis reveals that while ES-related publications have grown rapidly, NCP remains underrepresented in the literature, with limited empirical studies, especially in the Global South.Within South Korea, only a few reports and non-peer-reviewed articles have introduced NCP.This paper proposes " " as the most contextually appropriate Korean translation to promote consistency in terminology.Conclusions: Overall, NCP offers a transformative lens for sustainability science and governance, providing opportunities to integrate diverse knowledge systems and capture non-material dimensions of human-nature relationships.Its potential, however, depends on future methodological innovation, stronger institutional coordination, and enhanced cross-cultural engagement to support inclusive and equitable environmental decisionmaking.

Governance to manage the complexity of nature's contributions to people co-production

Mountains play a key role in the provision of nature’s contributions to people (NCP) worldwide that support societies’ quality of life. Simultaneously, mountains are threatened by multiple drivers of change. Due to the complex interlinkages between biodiversity, quality of life and drivers of change, research on NCP in mountains requires interdisciplinary approaches. In this study, we used the conceptual framework of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and the notion of NCP to determine to what extent previous research on ecosystem services in mountains has explored the different components of the IPBES conceptual framework. We conducted a systematic review of articles on ecosystem services in mountains published up to 2016 using the Web of Science and Scopus databases. Descriptive statistical and network analyses were conducted to explore the level of research on the components of the IPBES framework and their interactions. Our results show that research has gradually become more interdisciplinary by studying higher number of NCP, dimensions of quality of life, and indirect drivers of change. Yet, research focusing on biodiversity, regulating NCP and direct drivers has decreased over time. Furthermore, despite the fact that research on NCP in mountains becoming more policy-oriented over time, mainly in relation to payments for ecosystem services, institutional responses remained underexplored in the reviewed studies. Finally, we discuss the relevant knowledge gaps that should be addressed in future research in order to contribute to IPBES.

Predicting how nature's contributions to people (NCP) vary spatially remains a challenge. For NCP provided by mobile species, it is unclear how predictions need to account for the influence of multiple habitat types that act as sources, sinks and potential distractors of the NCP‐providing species. Existing approaches that do not account for these effects may inaccurately predict outcomes in real landscapes. To move beyond these limitations, we transfer quantitative inference approaches from movement ecology to explore how spatial habitat patterns determine the negative NCP of the invasive common brushtail possum Trichosurus vulpecula in New Zealand. We used a Bayesian model to investigate how the size of, and distance from, grassland and indigenous and exotic forest patches together contribute to relative possum density (measured by capture probability across a trapping network) in a heterogeneous 11,000‐ha landscape. We found that indigenous and exotic forest area were the most important factors in determining possum density. Although capture probability declined with increasing grassland area, the addition of grassland did not improve the relative model fit above one with indigenous forest as the only habitat. We expected differences in predicted possum density at habitat boundaries, for example, due to preferential foraging at edges. We found that indigenous and exotic forests contributed to capture probability interactively, such that capture probability at the between‐habitat edge was lower than expected, given the habitat area. We also found that models allowing for non‐linear habitat effects of exotic forests or grasslands, but not indigenous forests, were significantly better at predicting possum density than simpler models. Synthesis and applications. Our novel approach for spatial prediction can be applied to any of nature's contributions to people (NCP), and extended to identify trade‐offs and synergies among multiple NCP. For example, the negative NCP of possum density trades off with multiple known positive NCP from indigenous forests, including culturally significant non‐material NCP, and material NCP produced by exotic forests. We recommend that landscape management plans to maximise these positive NCP in future scenarios also consider how the risk of possum density may dampen net NCP provision. To minimise this negative NCP, our results support trap deployment in both indigenous and exotic forest.

European forests are expanding and becoming denser following the widespread abandonment of farmland and rural areas. Spontaneous forest regrowth provides a cost‐effective opportunity to restore ecosystems, enhance multifunctionality and sustainability and mitigate climate change. Yet, little is known about the goods and services that such forests provide to people. We assessed the changes in nature's contributions to people (NCP) from spontaneous forest regrowth, i.e. forest expansion and densification, in South‐West Europe. We investigated 65 forest plots in four different landscapes with contrasting ecological and societal contexts. Two landscapes are located in rural areas undergoing human exodus and forest expansion and densification; the other two, in peri‐urban areas with intense land use and forest densification but negligible expansion. For each forest plot, we estimated variables related to ten out of the 18 main NCP defined by the Intergovernmental Science‐Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Regulating and material NCP were addressed using variables measured in the field as proxies. Non‐material NCP were studied through stakeholder interviews. Our results show across the cases that forest expansion and densification are generally associated with greater climate regulation and energy provision. Changes in other NCP, especially in non‐material ones, were strongly context‐dependent. The social perception of spontaneous forest regrowth was primarily negative in rural areas and more positive in peri‐urban landscapes. Passive restoration through spontaneous forest expansion and densification can enhance regulating and material NCP, especially when adaptive management is applied. To optimise NCP and to increase the societal awareness of and interest in spontaneous forest regrowth, the effects of this process should be analysed in close coordination with local stakeholders to unveil and quantify the many and complex trade‐offs involved in rural or peri‐urban social perceptions. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

Achieving goals for conservation and sustainability using nature, decision-making, and policy planning requires accurate modes of description to understand the relationship between society and the environment. Despite most planning strategies being constrained by policy objectives, planning is expected to be more participatory and inclusive of the plurality of values and all types of socio-spatial relationships. Based on Lefebvre's social theory, the objectives of this work are to propose a triad of spaces as a helpful framework to analyse nature's contributions to people (NCP), describe different spaces socially constructed by coffee and potato farmer communities in Colombia, and explore the implications for various kinds of decision-making. Using qualitative research methods, this manuscript describes three spaces:lived spacesas intangible spaces based on local, religious, and ceremonial values of NCP;perceived spacesinclude farmer spatial organization according to the ties of kinship and the downward course of streams, the incidence of negative NCP, such as plant diseases, and types of management crops; andconceived spacesas the overlapping of different spatial views of territorial planning. Given that NCP has great potential to integrate diversity of values about nature and cultural contexts into decision-making, the triad of social spaces offers a spatial dimension to the analyses of NCP. Lived spaces make non-material NCP and non-instrumental values more visible. Perceived spaces highlight material NCP and regulating NCP with the view that maintenance of NCP in the future is essential for relational and instrumental values, e.g., how material NCP and regulating NCP of landscapes are perceived and by whom. Conceived spaces emphasize the predominance of the intrinsic biophysical values of NCP. Thus, the triad of social spaces as a conceptual framework can be useful in the operationalization of NCP in environmental management, the governance of schemes, and the implementation of land-use plans at the local scale. By thinking of these spaces relationally, such insight can inform and enhance decisions and policymaking about the value of places toward the priorities of meeting management. The results of the study emphasize the important policy implications of recognizinglivedandperceivedspaces in decision-making and highlight the role of NCP in facilitating the communication of these spaces to support spatial management of land use.

Nature's contributions to people (NCP) are essential for the production and trade of agricultural, forestry and fishery commodities. Often, there is a spatial disconnect between consumers and the natural systems where the commodities are produced. Traded agricultural products are therefore dependent on nature and NCP in their region of origin. The dependencies of agricultural products on NCP are, however, insufficiently recognised by consumers and are rarely considered in global environmental governance and trade policies along value chains. Here, we synthesise studies highlighting dependencies of agricultural products on NCP in their origin locations to identify opportunities and challenges in quantifying their contribution in sustaining trade flows. We suggest three methodological steps for quantifying NCP dependencies in international agricultural trade: spatial mapping of NCP supply and demand, linking NCP to agricultural trade flows, and tracing trade flows. Each methodological step requires further development and harmonisation to enable a complete accounting of how international agricultural trade depends on NCP. Given the lack of knowledge and data on how NCP support agricultural trade, social and environmental trade‐offs of natural resource management are currently hard to quantify. Quantifying the role of NCP dependencies of traded agricultural products can support their sustainable management, contribute to supply chain accountability and serve as input to sustainable natural resource governance and foster responsibility and equity in supply chains. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Woody encroachment is affecting nature's contributions to people (NCP) in grassy ecosystems around the world, but these impacts have not yet been well summarised. Moreover, the impacts of encroachment are likely to vary depending on the historical ecosystem dynamics, climatic conditions, encroacher species, and the temporal, spatial, cultural and socio‐economic contexts, including the dependence of communities on natural resources. To address these issues, we systematically reviewed the literature on the impacts of woody encroachment in Africa and North America, according to the three broad groups of the NCP framework: material, non‐material and regulating NCP. The material NCP most adversely affected by woody encroachment was the reduction in herbaceous forage availability, leading to reductions in the number and products of livestock on both continents. The benefits of material NCP were largely experienced in Africa and constituted the provision of wood materials for fuel, building and forage. Negative impacts on non‐material NCP, such as recreation, tourism and social amenities, were also reported for Africa. For regulating NCP, negative effects were reported on soil health, habitat availability and the regulation of hydrological NCP (in terms of water loss) in both continents. The regulating benefits were mainly carbon stocks in both continents, with North America reporting more than three times more positive cases than Africa. The benefits of woody encroachment, such as carbon stocks, must be understood in the context of the highlighted diverse impacts on other NCP. Depending on the context (e.g. ecological, spatial, cultural or socioeconomic), the need for certain NCP such as livestock production, tourism revenue and water provision supports efforts to reverse woody encroachment. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Nature's contributions to people (NCP) encompass both the beneficial and detrimental effects of living nature on human quality of life, including regulatory, material, and non-material contributions. Globally, vital NCPs have been deteriorating, accelerated by changes in both natural and anthropogenic drivers over recent decades. Despite the often inevitable trade-offs between NCPs due to their spatially and temporally uneven distributions, few studies have quantitatively assessed the impacts of different drivers on the spatial and temporal changes in multiple NCPs and their interrelationships. Here we evaluate the effects of precipitation, temperature, population, gross domestic product, vegetation restoration, and urban expansion on four key regulatory NCPs—habitat maintenance, climate regulation, water quantity regulation, and soil protection—in Nei Mongol at the county level. We observe increasing trends in climate regulation and soil protection from 2000 to 2019, contrasted with declining trends in habitat maintenance and water quantity regulation. We have identified the dominant positive and negative drivers influencing each NCP across individual counties, finding that natural drivers predominantly overpowered anthropogenic drivers. Furthermore, we discover significant spatial disparities in the trade-off or synergy relationships between NCPs across the counties. Our findings illustrate how the impacts of various drivers on NCPs and their interrelationships can be quantitatively evaluated, offering significant potential for application in various spatial scales. With an understanding of trade-offs and scale effects, these insights are expected to support and inform policymaking at both county and provincial levels.

The impact of multipurpose dams on the values of nature's contributions to people under a water-energy-food nexus framing

Ecosystem restoration is inherently a complex activity with inevitable tradeoffs in environmental and societal outcomes. These tradeoffs can potentially be large when policies and practices are focused on single outcomes versus joint achievement of multiple outcomes. Few studies have assessed the tradeoffs in Nature's Contributions to People (NCP) and the distributional equity of NCP from forest restoration strategies. Here, we optimized a defined forest restoration area across India with systematic conservation planning to assess the tradeoffs between three NCP: i) climate change mitigation NCP, ii) biodiversity value NCP (habitat created for forest-dependent mammals), and iii) societal NCP (human direct use of restored forests for livelihoods, housing construction material, and energy). We show that restoration plans aimed at a single-NCP tend not to deliver other NCP outcomes efficiently. In contrast, integrated spatial forest restoration plans aimed at achievement of multiple outcomes deliver on average 83.3% (43.2 to 100%) of climate change mitigation NCP, 89.9% (63.8 to 100%) of biodiversity value NCP, and 93.9% (64.5 to 100%) of societal NCP delivered by single-objective plans. Integrated plans deliver NCP more evenly across the restoration area when compared to other plans that identify certain regions such as the Western Ghats and north-eastern India. Last, 38 to 41% of the people impacted by integrated spatial plans belong to socioeconomically disadvantaged groups, greater than their overall representation in India's population. Moving ahead, effective policy design and evaluation integrating ecosystem protection and restoration strategies can benefit from the blueprint we provide in this study for India.

Over the last half-century, nature conservation has shifted through several steps from ‘nature for itself’ to ‘nature and people’, corresponding to a new perspective that all species count to ensure ecosystem functioning, and with them that nature's contributions to people (NCPs) are effective and maintained. Yet, despite these conceptual shifts in the academic literature, conservation practices have remained largely focused on threatened species and protected areas. The last Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) of the Convention on Biological Diversity insisted on the need to use biodiversity sustainably and ensure nature's contributions to people, including ecosystem functions and services for the benefit of present and future generations by 2050. Here, using recently developed tables relating a large number of species observed in the Western Swiss Alps (vascular plants and vertebrates; n = 2066) to 17 key NCPs, we show that focusing on protecting threatened species only does not ensure the maintenance of key NCPs. Our results suggest that all species (threatened or not) need to be considered, in addition to strict conservation of threatened species, to support NCP provision. Similarly, considering all species better supports existing conservation programs. Developing such direct species-NCP relationships more broadly will be needed to support spatial prioritizations and help reach the 2050 GBF goals.

Nature’s contributions to people (NCPs) underpin the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) but are declining globally. It is therefore critical to identify the drivers of changes in NCPs, and to understand how and where NCPs can contribute towards the achievement of the SDGs. By integrating the conceptual framework of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBESs) and the SDGs, we can obtain a better understanding of how changes in the state of NCPs support or hinder attainment of the SDGs, and how changes in NCPs are driven by development interventions. We conducted a systematic synthesis of the literature to determine the state of research on NCPs, trends in NCPs and their drivers, and the contribution of NCPs towards achieving the SDGs in Nepal, a low-income and highly biodiverse country. We found that NCPs contributed positively towards the achievement of 12 SDGs. However, NCPs were reported to be declining across Nepal, ultimately undermining Nepal’s ability to achieve SDG targets. The major direct drivers of decline were land-use change, over-exploitation, and climate change. These direct drivers were linked to conventional development interventions, including agricultural expansion and the construction of road and energy infrastructure. However, some interventions, such as community forestry and protected areas, increased the supply of NCPs. Better integration of Indigenous knowledge and local practices was also reported to be effective in improving the provision of NCPs and contributing to improving livelihoods at local scales. We identified opportunities for further research in NCPs, particularly in increasing geographical representativeness and improving our understanding of non-material NCPs. Our approach of combining the IPBES conceptual framework and the SDGs enabled us to more comprehensively identify how progress towards the SDGs are mediated by NCPs and provides actionable guidelines for how to take more integrative measures to achieve the SDGs in Nepal and countries facing similar development challenges.

Investigation of the long-term interactions of nature's contributions to people under SDGs-SSPs scenarios to promote ecological sustainability in the arid and semiarid zones of China.