Recovering Salt Marsh Ecosystem Services through Tidal Restoration
Some would maintain that conservation and restoration activities are justified on ethical grounds alone (see review by Brennan and Lo 2008). However, demonstration of the economic benefit of ecosystems can help drive social and governmental support for co
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Recovering Salt Marsh Ecosystem Services through Tidal Restoration Gail L. Chmura, David M. Burdick, and Gregg E. Moore
Some would maintain that conservation and restoration activities are justified on ethical grounds alone (see review by Brennan and Lo 2008). However, demonstration of the economic benefit of ecosystems can help drive social and governmental support for conservation; and restoration and economic limitations could force choices among restoration activities. To aid decision making we need to estimate the values that restored ecosystems will provide for society. But defining these values remains a significant challenge, particularly within the context of restoration in which functions have been impaired and may contribute only incremental services over the varying course of the restoration process. Nonetheless, wetlands have direct and indirect economic value to local communities, and they provide services that benefit society as a whole. The term “ecosystem services” encompasses benefits that have direct economic value and those that have indirect public benefits. Evaluating and quantifying ecosystem services is a challenge regardless of the system status: natural, disturbed, or in various stages of restoration.
The Concept of Ecosystem Services Mooney and Ehrlich (1997) reviewed the history of the ecosystem services concept, which they suggest existed even before the term “ecosystem” was introduced by Tansley (1935). The concept was first directly articulated by the Study of Critical Environmental Problems (SCEP 1970), which produced a list of nine “environmental services” (pest control, insect pollination, fisheries, climate regulation, soil retention, flood control, soil formation, cycling of organic matter, and composition of the atmosphere). Holdren and Ehrlich (1974) later used the term “public-service functions of the global environment” and added two more
C.T. Roman and D.M. Burdick (eds.), Tidal Marsh Restoration: A Synthesis of Science 233 and Management, The Science and Practice of Ecological Restoration, DOI 10.5822/978-1-61091-229-7_15, © 2012 Island Press
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(maintenance of soil fertility and of a genetic library). The concept was later referred to as nature’s services (Westman 1977) and eventually as ecosystem services by Ehrlich and Ehrlich (1981). Ecosystem services were the focus of a book edited by Daily (1997, 3) who defined ecosystem services as “the conditions and processes through which natural ecosystems, and the species that make them up, sustain and fulfill human life,” with a list of fourteen services embracing those mentioned by Holdren and Ehrlich (1974). The term “ecosystem services” has since been in common use, although many have noted that “services” and the ecosystem functions or processes that provide them are frequently confused (e.g., Brander et al. 2006; Fisher et al. 2009). This and a varying list of services and meanings confound attempts to place a dollar value on wetlands. An effort has been made to
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