The most important ecosystem services are:
Provisioning Services: the benefits extracted directly by humans from nature. They include food, drinking water, wood fuel, timber, natural gas, fiber, oils, plants, and medicine
Regulating Services: These are the benefits from ecosystem processes responsible for moderating natural phenomena. These services include pollination, erosion, decomposition, flood control, water purification, climate regulation and carbon storage. They are important because they make man live comfortably (Roo-Zielinska, et al., 2020).
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Supporting Services: Ecosystems themselves can’t be sustained in absence of the consistency of natural processes such as soil creation, water cycle, nutrient cycling, and photosynthesis. These processes ensure the sustenance of simple life forms, whole ecosystems and humans (Rowland, 2019).
The continual supply of these services ensures smooth running of life for people. The cessation of any can lead to a threat to the existence of humankind therefore, the need for compensation of the loss of one service is important where possible for example, humans can compensate the loss of wood for fuel with natural gas.
Pollution, over-harvesting, invasive species, eutrophication, UV Radiation and habitat exploitation are posing a great threat to all ecosystem services (Rowland, 2019). Humans are to be blamed for all these vices. Measures such as sustainable forestry, waste reduction, controlled resource extraction, among others can help reduce the threat to ecosystem services (Delgado & Marính, 2020).
References
Delgado, L. E., & Marính, V. H. (2020). Ecosystem services and ecosystem degradation: Environmentalist’s expectation? Ecosystem Services , 45 , 101177. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2020.101177
Roo-Zielinska, E., Affek, A., Kowalska, A., Grabinska, B., Kruczkowska, B., Wolski, J., Solon, J., & Degórski, M. (2019). Ecosystem service potentials and their indicators in postglacial landscapes: Assessment and mapping .
Rowland, P. (2019). Ecosystem services and faith communities in Oceania. Ecosystem Services , 39 , 100994. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2019.100994
