The concept of ES is used to model the relationships between ecosystems and their uses. The idea is based on a simple, global observation: ecosystems supply and dispense goods to mankind, thereby contributing to human well-being through the exploitation of their natural resources.
material resources and the enjoyment of immaterial resources. Isn't Lake Geneva a "source of life"?
In practical terms? The forest produces wood and chanterelle mushrooms, the lake water and fish, but both also 'produce' walks, the colours of autumn or the tropical blue lagoon of Lake Geneva - in other words, dreams, beauty... and also, discreetly, oxygen. These ecosystem functions are interconnected. They provide "ecosystem services". Ecosystem" is a reminder that the natural operators of these services are biological tissues that function as "systems", i.e. groups structured by interdependencies.
We owe the idea of ES to the desire of scientists to highlight what humanity owes to Nature and to the ecosystems without whose integrity it could not survive. Of course, to refer to ES when discussing nature-society relations is to simplify the problem at hand, a simplification that is sometimes considered abusive because it ignores uncertainties and opens the door to the commodification of nature (Barnaud et al., 2011). The market value of certain services has been quantified, but for educational purposes. From my
From this point of view, the added value of the concept lies elsewhere, as a tool for synthesising and analysing interdependencies. It makes no sense to know how many euros per hectare Lake Geneva is worth, and nobody here is going to fall into that trap.
