VALUATION OF ECOSYSTEM SERVICES IN HIGH HIMALAYAN MOUNTAIN LANDSCAPE
December 19, 2019
ECOSYSTEM & BIODIVERSITY VALUATION
ECOSYSTEM SERVICES& ECONOMICS
In ecosystem includes all living things in a given area along with their interactions
with each other and with the surrounding environment. The interactions of all
living and non-living things in the ecosystem provides benefits which are termed
as “ecosystem services”. These include provisioning services such as food and water; regulating services such as regulation of floods, drought, land degradation and disease; supporting services such as soil formation and nutrient cycling and
cultural services such as recreational, spiritual, religious and other nonmaterial
benefits.
NEED FOR VALUATION OF BIODIVERSITY &ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
Valuation of ecosystem services means assigning economic, social and cultural values to the services provided by the respective ecosystem to the people around. There are four different types of services provided by an ecosystem: i) Regulatory, ii) Provisioning, iii) Supporting and iv) Cultural. Besides, there could be very specific services that a particular ecosystem can provide to the local area which are not covered under these four categories. Understanding of the values of the services provided by the surrounding ecosystem to the people can present an economic argument for protecting those natural resources. Unless, the values are known it is hard to adopt any economic or social measure to protect and conserve the ecosystem indeed. In general, ecosystem around us being the public goods has no inherent merit of being protected from over exploitation and destruction. Economic valuation can provide certain policy logic for conservation and protection and can even help to convert them into private goods and impose control over consumption of the derived services. Thus quantification of ecosystem services helps in highlighting the relevance of these services in the society and also helps in mainstreaming of services into policies and decision making.