Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 22.1
A new restoration ecology dynamics model in a world of changing ecosystems, ever-deeper human footprint
and global ecological fl ux. Various possible trajectories exist which are not linear, nor even entirely predictable.
project we introduced back in Chapter 2. Following on
from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA
2005) and the Stern Report (Stern 2006) dealing with
the economic costs of anthropogenic climate change,
TEEB (2010, 2011) is a high-level international study
dealing with the economic costs of ecosystem degrada-
tion and the loss of biodiversity. It also addresses the
cost of inaction and proposes concrete solutions that
could move global society towards sustainability. TEEB
adopts a much more ecologically informed approach to
economic science than did the Stern report, which
adhered to the currently dominant ' neoclassical '
approach, which advocates an unregulated 'free'
market. What TEEB spells out, in fi ve different topics
aimed at different audiences, and in simple language,
is that the costs of ecological degradation and biodiver-
sity loss are enormous, and that a big part of the sane,
or intelligent, answer is to invest much more heavily in
the restoration of degraded ecosystems and the revi-
talization of fragmented landscapes.
We note that in some countries, like South Africa,
Ecuador, Costa Rica, Japan and Brazil, and some states
and regions in Canada, the United States, Mexico and
elsewhere, ecological restoration is increasingly seen as
a sustainable development strategy as well as a conser-
vation one; indeed no dichotomy between restoration
and development exists when all costs and benefi ts are
factored into the valuation of restoration, and it is
incentivized by legislation. There is resistance, of
course, from both vested-interest lobbies and other
sectors, but this core idea is making progress.
For more progress to happen in these areas, all stake-
holders and decision makers need to have a much
clearer idea of the importance to human society of
ecosystems and biodiversity, which we have seen can
be described metaphorically as renewable natural
capital or ' ecological infrastructure ' (TEEB 2010 ). In
the very fi rst chapter of the fi rst of the fi ve planned
TEEB volumes, de Groot
et al
. (2010) present a very
useful ' cascade ' image (see Figure 22.2 ), starting with
a 'box' on the upper left of the schema which repre-
sents ' ecosystems and biodiversity ' , renewable natural
capital (
sensu
MA 2005; Aronson
et al
. 2007 ), in which
biophysical structure and processes are distinguished
from ecosystem functions. To wit, the biophysical
structure and processes are the infrastructure that pro-
vides the matrix for the functions or 'workings' of eco-
systems, hence the term ' ecological infrastructure '
used metaphorically by TEEB (see Neßhöver
et al
.
2011). Note that the functions are defi ned here by their
potential to deliver ecosystem goods and services
for human interests (EGS, given in the central box of
the fi gure). This schema presents for the fi rst time
an illustration clearly showing the difference between
