Ecosystem Services

Abstract

Ecosystem services, commonly defined as the benefits provided by ecosystems to humans, are an increasingly dominant approach to ordering and organizing human and nonhuman (or ecosystemic) relations, setting norms for the management and governance of socioecologies. The ecosystem services revolution aims to make visible and ideally quantifiable the often underappreciated and undervalued ecological structures and processes necessary for human life on earth. While the concept is becoming central to environmental governance, some academics (including geographers and ecologists) contest this turn, along with some environmental, indigenous, and social justice activists.