Common ground for biodiversity and ecosystem services: the “partial protection” challenge

Abstract

New global initiatives require clarity about similarities and differences between biodiversity and ecosystem services. One argument is that ecosystem services capture utilitarian values, while biodiversity captures intrinsic values. However, the concept of biodiversity equally emerges from anthropogenic use values. Measures of biodiversity indicate broad option values, and so provide different information about future uses and benefits. Such differences nevertheless can be the basis for “common ground” for biodiversity and ecosystem services. Systematic conservation planning and related frameworks acknowledge such differences through effective trade-offs and synergies among different values of society. The early work on regional biodiversity trade-offs includes a little-explored aspect that could enhance this common ground. Regional planning here takes into account the “partial protection” of biodiversity provided by some land uses. Common-ground will be promoted by better integrating the ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation offered by ecosystems at the “natural end of the spectrum” with the partial protection and other benefits/services provided by more intensively-transformed places.

Avoiding paradigm drifts in IPBES: reconciling “nature’s contributions to people,” biodiversity, and ecosystem services

“…That accords nicely with ecosystem services work already progressing in that context, but it misses the point about how this NCP links to global option values of biodiversity (and its roughly 50-year-old history, referred to above). Indeed, the words excised by Peterson et al from the IPBES definition (Díaz et al 2018a, see also IPBES 2017) are exactly those that make the link to the various components of biodiversity that provide global biodiversity option value (for related discussion, see Faith 2003Faith , 2017).…”

“…The Peterson et al (2018a) commentary expressed concern about "replacing the term "ecosystems" with "nature."" That concern appears unwarranted, for two reasons: first, reference to NCP does not imply a neglect of human-transformed ecosystems, and second, and more importantly, it is exactly the reference to "nature," and not just "ecosystems," that promotes the consideration of global option values of biodiversity, as a key contribution of nature to people (see also Faith 1997Faith , 2003Faith , 2017.…”

“…I conclude this section with a caveat. I have only referred here to a small sample from the history of writings on biodiversity value and on ES (some additional historical perspective is provided in Faith 1997Faith , 2003Faith , 2017. But perhaps this sample is enough to warn us of a possible paradigm drift and its consequences.…”

Predicting the impact of fire on a vulnerable multi-species community using a dynamic vegetation model

“…In the conservation literature, "trade-offs" are often discussed in the context of compromises between biodiversity goals and economic well-being (McShane et al, 2011;Hirsch et al, 2011), or conflicts among potential services provided by natural landscapes (Faith, 2012). Few studies look at trade-offs between species in a particular landscape context.…”