Ecosystems and ecosystem services | TableDebates

Image: Chaos07, Recife coral reef mar, Pixabay, CC0 Creative Commons

Journal articles

Only 13% of the ocean is classed as wilderness

The first systematic analysis of marine wilderness around the world finds that only 13% of the ocean can still be classed as wilderness, i.e. having experienced low impacts from human-caused stressors such as fertilizer runoff, fishing and climate change. Only 4.9% of that wilderness (covering 0.6% of total ocean area) falls within official marine protected areas.

New metrics needed to manage food system

TEEBAgriFood, part of the UN Environment initiative The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, has released a report on the environmental, health and social costs and benefits of the agriculture and food system. It finds that the food system does not keep everyone healthy or protect the environment. It calls for a reform in how we measure food system performance, because relying on yield per hectare and market prices neglects other costs such as food-borne disease and environmental degradation.

Beyond One Health: From recognition to results

This book, edited by John A. Herrmann and Yvette J. Johnson-Walker, explores the One Health concept, which links the health of humans, animals and ecosystems. Topics covered include the links between biodiversity and health, food and water security, zoological institutions, One Health initiatives and the social cost of carbon.

Image: Sheep81, Northern White Rhinoceros Angalifu, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain

Journal articles

Humans have eradicated many living things

Although humans only make up 0.01% of life on Earth by weight, 83% of wild mammals and 15% of fish have been lost since the start of human civilisation, according to a new study. The study also finds that, of all mammals on Earth, 36% are humans, 60% are livestock and 4% are wild mammals, while 70% of birds are chicken and other poultry with only 30% being wild.

Ecosystem services and poverty alleviation

This open access book, edited by Kate Schreckenberg, Georgina Mace and Mahesh Poudyal, explores the link between ecosystems services and alleviating poverty. Topics include trade-offs associated with land intensification, population dynamics, governance for ecosystem health and human wellbeing, and payments for ecosystems services.

Image: MOAA, Satellite image and illustration of a dead zone in the southern U.S., Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

News and resources

Video: The “dead zone” of the Gulf of Mexico

In this TED talk, ocean expert Nancy Rabalais discusses the “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico - an area of the ocean where there isn’t enough oxygen to support sea life. Fertiliser runoff from farmland further up the Mississippi River is causing the dead zone, according to Rabalais. She says that solutions could include growing perennial grains and using precision fertilisation.

A large white van is parked in an alleyway next to boxes of vegetables

Food systems and contributions to other environmental problems

Food systems interact with, and affect, the environment in a great many ways beyond their greenhouse gas emissions. In order to feed humans, the global food system occupies over a third of the earth’s land surface; extracts large amounts of fish and animals from natural habitats; makes huge claims on natural resources; and dispurses various pollutants into the environment. An appreciation of this wide range of environmental impacts is needed to understand why food systems are central to solving many of our biggest environmental problems, and ultimately to maintaining human well-being. Also useful, is to understand that the causes and solutions to these problems are often interconnected through food systems, resulting in trade-off situations where a course of action can at the same time, make one issue better and another worse.

Image: Angus MacAskill, Japanese knotweed 2, Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

A key debate: how valid are findings that local species richness is stable or increasing?

A perspective piece and an editorial have featured in the same edition of Biological Conservation (March 2018): both tackle a recent debate among conservation biologists as to whether at a local level biodiversity or species richness is changing and in what direction.

Web-based assessment tool to explore and compare protected areas

The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre has developed a new online tool. DOPA Explorer 2.0 provides allows users to explore and compare protected areas, with regard to their species and ecosystems, and the pressures they are exposed to through human development.