Ecosystem services blog posts

In southern Laos, rice fields are not only important for rice; they also harbour fish, frogs, insects, snails and plants, that are caught to supplement the diets of the farmers and their families. Government policy to increase rice production threatens the survival of these unrecorded food sources.

Who would have thought that the restoration of natural habitats, such as cloud forests, could help keep the light bulb on a bit longer during periods of water scarcity and electricity rationing?

How can we best protect forests for the myriad ecosystem services they provide – capturing and storing carbon, protecting river systems and soils, maintaining biodiversity and ensuring access to bushmeat? The presumption is that the local forest dwellers and users have to be kept out. But that increasingly looks like exactly the wrong approach.

A new film spotlights a research project that demonstrates how the ‘big win’ is actually the result of the convergence of many small interventions. The project improved inland fisheries in Bangladesh from a number of angles that acknowledged the prevailing social system, market and ecosystem dynamics.

In 2009, businesses and farmers operating in Naivasha received a rude wake up call. Lake Naivasha almost dried up. In a basin that supports over 60% of Kenya’s flower industry, accounting for over 1% of the country’s GDP, policy makers and businesses were quick to respond.

Since the Green Revolution, we’ve been relying heavily on a strategy to control variability in agricultural systems, as we strive to minimize agricultural nuisances through the use of chemicals and irrigation. This has won us some major successes in increasing yields, but at high cost to the many other benefits provided by agricultural landscapes.

Sources of novelty and innovation are key to building resilience in socio-ecological systems. “Nature” is the ultimate innovator and we only have to examine adaptations that have evolved in response to complex problems to realise that it is a decisive and creative force. However, we often tend to overlook sources of innovation provided by natural ecosystems.

The destruction by human action of ecosystems is leaving communities more vulnerable to natural disasters – in harm's way. The solution lies not in a doomed effort to prevent floods, but in improving the resilience of the landscape by finding ways to embrace managed floods through reviving natural wetland ecosystems. Cyclone shelters can save lives, but not livelihoods.

Voluntary sustainability standards focus on farm-scale best management practices, but landscape-scale changes matter more for biodiversity conservation (e.g. reducing habitat fragmentation).

This infographic shows how ecosystem services contribute to agricultural productivity and provides examples of which agricultural practices can improve the delivery of ecosystem services.

From April 28 - May 31, 2014 the Agriculture and Ecosystems Blog will feature blog posts that focus on key resilience concepts in agricultural systems.

Many traditional farming communities adopt new crops and varieties, while retaining the ones that are already there. As this change is a managed change, farmers are actually improving to the resilience of agricultural systems.