Ecosystem Services and
Poverty Alleviation:
What is the connection?
Dr Bob Scholes
Fellow, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research,
South Africa
Co-Chair: Status and Trends WG, Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment
4 October 2010
WWF 2008 Africa : Ecological Footprint and Human Wellbeing WWF– Gland, Switzerland and
Global Footprint Network (GFN), Oakland, California USA.ISBN 978-2-88085-290-0
Human Development Index
Ecological Footprint Index
The big question:
Can the developing world rise to an
acceptable level of human development
without overloading its environment?
The notion of ‘Ecosystem Services’
‘The benefits that people derive from nature’
• Built a bridge between the social sciences
and the natural sciences
• Potentially it can do the same between the
development and environment agendas
Daily, GC(ed) 1997 Nature’s Services: Societal depencence on natural ecosystems:
Island Press, Washington DC
Connecting biodiversity to human wellbeing
Human wellbeing
Ecosystem services
Biodiversity
MA (2003) Ecosystem Services and Human wellbeing: Conceptual framework
An evolving conceptual model
Scholes RJ et al 2010 Assessing State and Trends in Ecosystem Services
and Human Wellbeing. In: Ash, N et al (eds) Ecosystems and Human Wellbeing:
A manual for Assessment practitioners. Island Press, Washington DC 115-150
Inclusive wealth
Arrow,K, P Dasgupta,L Goulder, G Daily, P Ehrlich,G Heal, S Levin, K-G Maler,S Schneider, D Starrett
and B Walker 2004 Are We Consuming Too Much? Journal of Economic Perspectives 18 (3): 147–172
IW = Natural Capital + Human Capital + Manufactured Capital
Sustainable development is achieving nondeclining Inclusive Wealth over time
Studies show that this has often not been
the case
Real savings,
corrected for
resource
depletion,
are negative
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005
Ecosystems and Human Wellbeing: Synthesis
Despite economic growth,
Africa is getting poorer
Degradation of ecosystem services often
causes significant harm to human well-being
– The total economic value
associated with
managing ecosystems
more sustainably is often
higher than the value
associated with
conversion
– Conversion may still
occur because private
economic benefits are
often greater for the
converted system
Quantifying natural capital
NC = the net present value of the future flows of all
ecosystems services from a given ecosystem
Scholes RJ 2009 Syndromes of dryland degradation in southern Africa.
African Journal of Range & Forage Science 2009, 26(3): 113–125
InVEST- a method to calculate
changes in natural capital
http://www.naturalcapitalproject.org/InVEST.html
Conclusions
• new, non-conflictual conceptual space
has opened up for convergence of the
human development and environmental
protection agendas
• The tools are beginning to be available to
apply these ideas to practical problems