Selection 12- Ecosystems and Human Well-being

The world's ecosystems provides us with clean water, food, flood control, disease management, climate regualtion, spiritual fulfillment and natural resources and the list goes on. The need to protect these ecosystems must be implemented by government, economics, social behavior, and knowledge in order to achieve sustainability of these ecosystems.
Over the past 50 years these ecosystems have changed rapidly ad substantionaly. Some humans have benefited from this but in fact many people and regions have been harmed. There are problems associated with the current management of our world's ecosystems: resources are being degradaded and used unsustainably including fresh water, fishing, water purification, natural hazards and pest control. The full cost of the loss and degradation of our ecosystem services are difficult to measure, but they are substantial and growing. Second problem is that changes being made to our ecosystems are accelerating, are irreversible and show great consequences for uman beings. Examples would be disease emergence, alterations in water quality, and regional climate shifts. Third problem to ecosystem degradation would be the principle factor that it is causing poverty and social conflicts.
Environmental degradation will grow worse in the next 50 years, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, and excessive nutrient loading will become more severe. The changes needed to fix these growing problems are substantial and are currently underway.
An effective sustainability management approach requires substantial changes in institutions and governance, economic policies, and incentives, as well as social and behavior factors, technology, and knowledge. Actions must be taken in various sectors such as agriculture, forestry, finance, trade, and health. Groups that are dependant on ecosystem resources need to promote, encourage, and implement services which would substantially lessen the severity of the problems.
Over the past 50 years humans have altered the ecosystem more than any other period in our planet's history. These changes include:
1. Land that has been converted to cropland now covers one quarter of Earth's terrestrial surface.
2. Approximately 20% of the world's coral reefs were lost.
3. The amount of water passing through dams has quadrupled since 1960.
4. Since 1960, flows of reactive nitrogen in terrestrial ecosytems have doubled.
5. The atmospheric concentration of carbon has increased by about 32%.
Most of these changes represent loss of biodiversity, either the population size or majority of species is declining, and the Earth is becoming more homogenized such as the extinction rate of species has increased by as much as 1,000 times.
In order to meet the significant increase in population size food production has increased by two-and-a-half times, water use has doubled, wood harvest has tripled and hydropower capacity doubled.
Capital gain has had growing effects to the degradation of ecosystem services, changes in ecosystems, and growing poverty, or inequalities among people.
Among ecosystem sustainability there are three other major worries we need to think about. These are hunger, child mortality, and disease among all of us.
Past actions to slow or reverse the degradation have improved the well being of our ecosystems but they do not keep up to the growing pressure and demands. Substitutes can also be developed to meet our needs but the cost are generally high and negative on our environment.
It is weak human and institutional capacities on management of ecosystem services, under investment, lack of public awareness, and lack of awareness among decision makers that pose threats to the possibility of sustainable management of our ecosystems.