Project 2.2
Development of an Ecosystems Services Strategy for Australia

Ecosystems services and sustainable development

During 2006 Australia 21 consulted with a range of stakeholders and researchers both here and overseas, who have been engaged in considering the role which ecosystem services play in landscape health and sustainability. Ecosystems are dynamic complexes of plants, animals, microbes, and physical environmental features that interact with one another. They are critical to our well-being through the “services” they provide - clean air and water, pest control, food production, pollination, nutrient capture and recycling, carbon sequestration and recreational and cultural amenity.

To protect Australian landscapes – and their contribution to our well-being - we need to recognise the dynamic nature of ecosystems. Slowly changing variables can appear stable or in balance but can reach thresholds. When critical points are crossed, rapid and often irreversible change can occur. This results in long term changes, such as loss of habitats, species extinctions and changes in nutrient regimes (like the shift from fertile to a saline regime).

It is often difficult to detect how close we are to reaching thresholds, as we might miss the earliest warning signals. A safer alternative is therefore to calculate how well nature would be able to withstand changes if they were to happen. To calculate this we need to understand what is happening to the environment at a specific place, which means making sense of all the separate pieces of information and data that we have, and to make good gaps in vital data.

Emerging evidence suggests that the southward movement in the weather systems that have traditionally brought southern Australia its winter and spring rains is related to human induced climatic change. Australia is now facing large economic and social costs to ameliorate declining water availability and quality and associated impacts on agricultural production and flora and fauna. There is also a very strong link between biodiversity and ecosystem services. Although some services can be delivered in the short term by simplified ecosystems, these systems are less resilient and are more likely to fail or require increasing inputs to retain services over the long term, especially in the face of climate change.

Recent research and policy development work internationally and in Australia shows that integrating ecosystem services into natural resource management policies is critical to delivering more sustainable land use. A focus on ecosystem services will encourage the integrated consideration of the full suite of benefits provided by ecosystems. By coupling human needs with the environmental benefits that meet those needs, an ecosystem services approach provides an important conceptual basis for deciding when programs are meeting their social, economic and environmental objectives. This provides a powerful way to integrate social, economic and environmental issues into resource allocation and use decisions.

Following the UN global Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, the European Community is developing a strategy intended to deliver this integration (see figure).