Boundary of ecosystem services: A response to Chen et al. (2023)

• Autor(a) principal: Gray, Murray
• Data de Publicação: 2024
• Outros Autores: Fox, Nathan, Gordon, John E., Brilha, J. B., Charkraborty, Sbhik, Garcia, Maria da Glória, Hjort, Jan, Kubalíková, Lucie, Seijmonsbergen, Arie C., Urban, Jan
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://hdl.handle.net/1822/87423
• topic: Ecosystem services; Natural capital; Abiotic nature; Geodiversity; Geosystem services; Ciências Naturais::Ciências da Terra e do Ambiente; Cidades e comunidades sustentáveis

Chen et al. (2023) have proposed a scheme to define which services should be included as ecosystem services and which should be excluded so as to avoid “an all-encompassing metaphor that captures any benefit”. We discuss the proposals, drawing attention in particular to definitions of ‘natural capital’ and ‘ecosystems’, the complexities of separating biotic from abiotic flows, and the importance of geodiversity and geosystem services in delivering societal benefits. We conclude that rather than trying to separate out bits of nature in order to draw the boundary of ecosystem services, it is perhaps time to avoid using ‘nature’ and ‘biodiversity’ as synonyms and think instead of a more holistic and integrated approach involving ‘environmental’, ‘natural’ or ‘nature's services', in which the role of abiotic nature is fully recognised in both ecosystem services and non-ecosystem domains.