Optimizing ecosystem services to deliver multiple benefits.

Abstract

Abstract The inherently systemic concept of ecosystem services recognizes multiple, qualitatively differing societal benefits, yet most services remain overlooked by contemporary markets and policy drivers contributing to ecosystem degradation. Societal transition from reductive, reactive decision-making about ecosystem management and policy to one founded on a systemic basis is limited by the lag effect of legacy world views and fragmented formal and informal policies. Transformation to systemically based societal decision-making norms may be accelerated by recognizing that desired services should not dominate decision-making, instead of constituting 'anchor services' around which outcomes for linked ecosystem services can be optimized with the involvement of their beneficiaries. Deliberative processes can generate innovations in ecosystem use and management, including identification of 'systemic solutions' that deliberately optimize outcomes across a spectrum of linked ecosystem services. This service-optimizing approach is more equitable through addressing outcomes for diverse service beneficiaries, more economically efficient by recognizing and balancing linked benefits and disbenefits, and more resilient by refocusing on service-producing ecosystem processes. New policies and tools may be required, but the application of the ecosystem services framework to evaluate outcomes in existing tools enables rapid, incremental progress. Systemic thinking about ecosystem dependencies and impacts is relevant to all policy areas and sectors of society.