The importance of ecosystem services to support the governance of critical ecological assets

Abstract

Ecosystem services (ES) are the ecosystem contribution to human well-being: they bridge ecosystems with socio-economic systems, in terms of both impacts and dependencies. So far, most of the research on ES focused on the services delivered “here and now”, i.e. where spatial location of ecosystem providers and human users can be defined and when the delivery of the needed services can be allocated to the current generations. However, especially when considering the medium- and long-term effects of climate change adaptation, there is the need to start projecting the scope of the services beyond national boundaries and to the future generations. Although formally listed and acknowledged, many ES currently miss applications able to support appropriate biophysical assessment and valuation. In this respect, it is time to start considering ES that go beyond the “here” because they serve the global society, and beyond the “now” because they consider long terms impacts. This article identifies possible streams of these “not-here, not-now” ES that requires developing applications, as it is already happening for many other ES. Such ES, in fact, contribute to identify long-term “critical ecological asset”, whose assessment can provide important environmental metrics for economic and financial analyses.