Introduction

Use Of Land, Ecosystem Services, And Biodiversity

Irrespective of the formal processes for planning strategic programmes (SEA) and large development projects (EIA), the myriad local “me-too” decisions tend to make use of land intensive and monotonous outside protected areas. This creates the risk that the 17% of land which is targeted for protection (CBD 2010) tends either to be remote or “small islands of biodiversity in a sea of agriculture” (Hutton & Leader-Williams 2003). However, recent thinking goes beyond a hands-off approach to conserving the riches of nature.

After the Ecosystem Approach of CBD (2002) stressed that humans too are a part of natural systems, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) recognised benefits for humans from ecosystem services, for regulating climate, floods and disease, for provisioning with food and materials, for cultural recreation and aesthetics and for supporting those three service categories with soil and clean air and water. Recent interest in valuing those services (e.g. in The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity 2010) has tended to focus on the importance of provisioning services, and the need for public spending to conserve regulating and supporting services from ecosystems as public or common goods. Unfortunately, provisioning services tend to become private crops grown intensively at the expense of biodiversity; moreover, high biodiversity is not always essential for supporting and regulating services, partly because humans can fill the consumptive role of other species (e.g. predators).