Managing Ecosystem Services for Enhancing Climate Change Adaptation in the Hindu Kush Himalayas - Impact of Global Changes on Mountains: Responses and Adaptation - page 208

9
Managing Ecosystem Services
for Enhancing Climate Change
Adaptation in the Hindu Kush
Himalayas
Nakul Chettri,* Golam Rasul and Eklabya Sharma
INTRODUCTION
Ecosystem services are benefi ts people derive from ecosystems, which
include provisioning services (food and water); regulating services
(regulation of fl oods, drought, land degradation, and disease); supporting
services (soil formation and nutrient cycling); cultural services (recreational,
spiritual or religious); and other non-material benefi ts (MA 2005). These
services are critical to the functioning of the Earth's life support system that
contributes to human welfare, both directly and indirectly, representing part
of the total economic value of the planet (Costanza et al. 1997). Dynamic
ecosystems and their services are intricately linked to human wellbeing
and are linked with various drivers of change, such as excessive demands
from a growing population, land use and cover change, and climate change
to name a few, leading to biodiversity loss (SCBD 2010). The Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment (MA) documented the importance of ecosystem
services to human wellbeing and showed that continued supply of these
services is threatened by unsustainable anthropogenic activities (MA 2005).