Urban Forests Benefit Your Health And Your Wallet
Saturday, February 25, 2012 - 03:30
in Earth & Climate
These days it's common to hear about "ecosystem services," but what are they, really? According to G.C. Daily, who coined the phrase in 1997, ecosystem services are "the conditions and processes through which natural ecosystems, and the species that make them up, sustain and fulfill human life." Various authors have tweaked the definition over the years, sometimes to make it more accurate or specific to particular ecosystems. Recently, for instance, researchers amended the idea of ecosystem services to be more applicable to forests; their proposed definition referred to the "components of forests that are enjoyed, consumed, or used to produce specific measurable human benefits." read more