Chapter 1

MA Conceptual Framework
Main Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
1.1

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

1.2

What Is the Problem? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

1.3

Conceptual Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
1.3.1
1.3.2
1.3.3
1.3.4

Ecosystems and Their Services
Human Well-being and Poverty Reduction
Drivers of Change
Cross-scale Interactions and Assessment

1.4

Values Associated with Ecosystems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

1.5

Assessment Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

1.6

Strategies and Interventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

BOXES
1.1

Key Definitions

1.2

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Conceptual Framework

1.3

Reporting Categories Used in the Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment

1.4

Valuation of Ecosystem Services

FIGURES
1.1

Linkages between Ecosystem Services and Human Wellbeing

This chapter provides the summary of Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Ecosystems and Human Well-being: A Framework for Assessment (Island
Press, 2003), pp. 1–25, which was prepared by an extended conceptual framework writing team of 51 authors and 10 contributing authors.
25

26

Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Current State and Trends

Main Messages
Human well-being and progress toward sustainable development are vitally dependent upon improving the management of Earth’s ecosystems
to ensure their conservation and sustainable use. But while demands forecosystem services such as food and clean water are growing, human actions
are at the same time diminishing the capability of many ecosystems to meetthese demands.
Sound policy and management interventions can often reverse ecosystem degradation and enhance the contributions of ecosystems to humanwell-being, but knowing when and how to intervene requires substantial understanding of both the ecological and the social systems involved. Better
information cannot guarantee improved decisions, but it is a prerequisite forsound decision-making.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment was established to help provide
the knowledge base for improved decisions and to build capacity for
analyzing and supplying this information.
This chapter presents the conceptual and methodological approach that
the MA used to assess options that can enhance the contribution of
ecosystems to human well-being. This same approach should provide asuitable basis for governments, the private sector, and civil society to factor
considerations of ecosystems and ecosystem services into their own planningand actions.

1.1 Introduction
Humanity has always depended on the services provided by thebiosphere and its ecosystems. Further, the biosphere is itself the
product of life on Earth. The composition of the atmosphere andsoil, the cycling of elements through air and waterways, and manyother ecological assets are all the result of living processes—and all
are maintained and replenished by living ecosystems. The humanspecies, while buffered against environmental immediacies by culture and technology, is ultimately fully dependent on the flow of
ecosystem services.
In his April 2000 Millennium Report to the United Nations
General Assembly, in recognition of the growing burden that degraded ecosystems are placing on human well-being and economic development and the opportunity that better managed
ecosystems provide for meeting the goals of poverty eradicationand sustainable development, United Nations Secretary-General
Kofi Annan stated that:
It is impossible to devise effective environmental policy unless it isbased on sound scientific information. While major advances in datacollection have been made in many areas, large gaps in our knowledge
remain. In particular, there has never been a comprehensive global
assessment of the world’s major ecosystems. The planned Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment, a major international collaborative effort tomap the health of our planet, is a response to this need.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment was established with
the involvement of governments, the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, and scientists to provide an integrated assessment of the consequences of ecosystem change for humanwell-being and to analyze options available to enhance the conservation of ecosystems and their contributions to meeting humanneeds. The Convention on Biological Diversity, the Convention
to Combat Desertification, the Convention on Migratory Species, and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands plan to use thefindings of the MA, which will also help meet the needs of others
in government, the private sector, and civil society. The MA
should help to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and to carry out the Plan of Implementation of the2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development. It has mobilized hundreds of scientists from countries around the world toprovide information and clarify science concerning issues ofgreatest relevance to decision-makers. The MA has identified
areas of broad scientific agreement and also pointed to areas ofcontinuing scientific debate.
The assessment framework developed for the MA offers decision-makers a mechanism to:• Identify options that can better achieve core human development and sustainability goals. All countries and communities
are grappling with the challenge of meeting growing demands
for food, clean water, health, and employment. And decisionmakers in the private and public sectors must also balance economic growth and social development with the need for environmental conservation. All of these concerns are linked
directly or indirectly to the world’s ecosystems. The MA
process, at all scales, was designed to bring the best science tobear on the needs of decision-makers concerning these links
between ecosystems, human development, and sustainability.
• Better understand the trade-offs involved—across sectors andstakeholders—in decisions concerning the environment. Ecosystem-related problems have historically been approachedissue by issue, but rarely by pursuing multisectoral objectives.
This approach has not withstood the test of time. Progress
toward one objective such as increasing food production has
often been at the cost of progress toward other objectives suchas conserving biological diversity or improving water quality.
The MA framework complements sectoral assessments withinformation on the full impact of potential policy choices
across sectors and stakeholders.
• Align response options with the level of governance where they
can be most effective. Effective management of ecosystems will
require actions at all scales, from the local to the global.
Human actions now directly or inadvertently affect virtually
all of the world’s ecosystems; actions required for the management of ecosystems refer to the steps that humans can take tomodify their direct or indirect influences on ecosystems. The
management and policy options available and the concerns ofstakeholders differ greatly across these scales. The priority
areas for biodiversity conservation in a country as defined
based on ‘‘global’’ value, for example, would be very different
from those as defined based on the value to local communities. The multiscale assessment framework developed for the
MA provides a new approach for analyzing policy options at
all scales—from local communities to international conventions.

1.2 What Is the Problem?
Ecosystem services are the benefits people obtain from ecosystems, which the MA describes as provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural services. (See Box 1.1.) Ecosystem services
include products such as food, fuel, and fiber; regulating services
such as climate regulation and disease control; and nonmaterial
benefits such as spiritual or aesthetic benefits. Changes in these
services affect human well-being in many ways. (See Figure 1.1.)
The demand for ecosystem services is now so great that tradeoffs among services have become the rule. A country can increase
food supply by converting a forest to agriculture, for example, but

MA Conceptual Framework
BOX 1.1

Key Definitions
Ecosystem. An ecosystem is a dynamic complex of plant, animal, andmicroorganism communities and the nonliving environment interacting
as a functional unit. Humans are an integral part of ecosystems. Ecosystems vary enormously in size; a temporary pond in a tree hollow
and an ocean basin can both be ecosystems.
Ecosystem services. Ecosystem services are the benefits people obtain from ecosystems. These include provisioning services such as
food and water; regulating services such as regulation of floods,
drought, land degradation, and disease; supporting services such as
soil formation and nutrient cycling; and cultural services such as recreational, spiritual, religious and other nonmaterial benefits.
Well-being. Human well-being has multiple constituents, including basic
material for a good life, freedom of choice and action, health, goodsocial relations, and security. Well-being is at the opposite end of acontinuum from poverty, which has been defined as a ‘‘pronounced
deprivation in well-being.’’ The constituents of well-being, as experienced and perceived by people, are situation-dependent, reflecting
local geography, culture, and ecological circumstances.

in so doing it decreases the supply of services that may be of equal
or greater importance, such as clean water, timber, ecotourism
destinations, or flood regulation and drought control. There aremany indications that human demands on ecosystems will growstill greater in the coming decades. Current estimates of 3 billion
more people and a quadrupling of the world economy by 2050
imply a formidable increase in demand for and consumption of
biological and physical resources, as well as escalating impacts on
ecosystems and the services they provide.
The problem posed by the growing demand for ecosystemservices is compounded by increasingly serious degradation in thecapability of ecosystems to provide these services. World fisheries
are now declining due to overfishing, for instance, and a significant amount of agricultural land has been degraded in the past
half-century by erosion, salinization, compaction, nutrient depletion, pollution, and urbanization. Other human-induced impacts
on ecosystems include alteration of the nitrogen, phosphorous,
sulfur, and carbon cycles, causing acid rain, algal blooms, and fishkills in rivers and coastal waters, along with contributions to climate change. In many parts of the world, this degradation of ecosystem services is exacerbated by the associated loss of theknowledge and understanding held by local communities—
knowledge that sometimes could help to ensure the sustainable
use of the ecosystem.
This combination of ever-growing demands being placed onincreasingly degraded ecosystems seriously diminishes the prospects for sustainable development. Human well-being is affected
not just by gaps between ecosystem service supply and demand
but also by the increased vulnerability of individuals, communities, and nations. Productive ecosystems, with their array of services, provide people and communities with resources andoptions they can use as insurance in the face of natural catastrophes or social upheaval. While well-managed ecosystems reducerisks and vulnerability, poorly managed systems can exacerbate
them by increasing risks of flood, drought, crop failure, or disease.
Ecosystem degradation tends to harm rural populations more
directly than urban populations and has its most direct and severe
impact on poor people. The wealthy control access to a greater
share of ecosystem services, consume those services at a higher27

per capita rate, and are buffered from changes in their availability(often at a substantial cost) through their ability to purchase scarceecosystem services or substitutes. For example, even though anumber of marine fisheries have been depleted in the past century,
the supply of fish to wealthy consumers has not been disrupted
since fishing fleets have been able to shift to previously underexploited stocks. In contrast, poor people often lack access to alternate services and are highly vulnerable to ecosystem changes that
result in famine, drought, or floods. They frequently live in locations particularly sensitive to environmental threats, and they lackfinancial and institutional buffers against these dangers. Degradation of coastal fishery resources, for instance, results in a decline
in protein consumed by the local community since fishers may
not have access to alternate sources of fish and community members may not have enough income to purchase fish. Degradation
affects their very survival.
Changes in ecosystems affect not just humans but countlessother species as well. The management objectives that people set
for ecosystems and the actions that they take are influenced notjust by the consequences of ecosystem changes for humans but
also by the importance people place on considerations of the intrinsic value of species and ecosystems. Intrinsic value is the valueof something in and for itself, irrespective of its utility for someone else. For example, villages in India protect ‘‘spirit sanctuaries’’
in relatively natural states, even though a strict cost-benefit calculation might favor their conversion to agriculture. Similarly, many
countries have passed laws protecting endangered species basedon the view that these species have a right to exist, even if theirprotection results in net economic costs. Sound ecosystem management thus involves steps to address the utilitarian links of people to ecosystems as well as processes that allow considerationsof the intrinsic value of ecosystems to be factored into decisionmaking.
The degradation of ecosystem services has many causes, including excessive demand for ecosystem services stemming from
economic growth, demographic changes, and individual choices.
Market mechanisms do not always ensure the conservation of
ecosystem services either because markets do not exist for services
such as cultural or regulatory services or, where they do exist,
because policies and institutions do not enable people living
within the ecosystem to benefit from services it may provide toothers who are far away. For example, institutions are now only
beginning to be developed to enable those benefiting from carbon
sequestration to provide local managers with an economic incentive to leave a forest uncut, while strong economic incentives
often exist for managers to harvest the forest. Also, even if a market exists for an ecosystem service, the results obtained throughthe market may be socially or ecologically undesirable. Properly
managed, the creation of ecotourism opportunities in a country
can create strong economic incentives for the maintenance of thecultural services provided by ecosystems, but poorly managed
ecotourism activities can degrade the very resource on which they
depend. Finally, markets are often unable to address important
intra- and intergenerational equity issues associated with managing ecosystems for this and future generations, given that somechanges in ecosystem services are irreversible.
The world has witnessed in recent decades not just dramaticchanges to ecosystems but equally profound changes to social systems that shape both the pressures on ecosystems and the opportunities to respond. The relative influence of individual nationstates has diminished with the growth of power and influenceof a far more complex array of institutions, including regional

28

Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Current State and Trends

CONSTITUENTS OF WELL-BEINGECOSYSTEM SERVICES

SecurityPERSONAL SAFETYSECURE RESOURCE ACCESSSECURITY FROM DISASTERS

Provisioning
FOOD
FRESH WATER
WOOD AND FIBER
FUEL
...

Supporting
NUTRIENT CYCLING
SOIL FORMATIONPRIMARY PRODUCTION...

Basic material
for good life
ADEQUATE LIVELIHOODSSUFFICIENT NUTRITIOUS FOOD
SHELTERACCESS TO GOODS

Regulating
CLIMATE REGULATIONFLOOD REGULATIONDISEASE REGULATIONWATER PURIFICATION...

HealthSTRENGTHFEELING WELLACCESS TO CLEAN AIR
AND WATER

Cultural
AESTHETICSPIRITUALEDUCATIONAL
RECREATIONAL...

Freedomof choiceand action
OPPORTUNITY TO BE
ABLE TO ACHIEVEWHAT AN INDIVIDUALVALUES DOING
AND BEING

Good social relations
SOCIAL COHESIONMUTUAL RESPECT
ABILITY TO HELP OTHERS

LIFE ON EARTH - BIODIVERSITY
ARROW’S COLOR
Potential for mediation bysocioeconomic factors

ARROW’S WIDTH
Intensity of linkages between ecosystemservices and human well-being

Low

Weak

MediumMediumHigh

StrongFigure 1.1. Linkages between Ecosystem Services and Human Well-being. This Figure depicts the strength of linkages between categories of ecosystem services and components of human well-being that are commonly encountered and includes indications of the extent towhich it is possible for socioeconomic factors to mediate the linkage. (For example, if it is possible to purchase a substitute for a degradedecosystem service, then there is a high potential for mediation.) The strength of the linkages and the potential for mediation differ in different
ecosystems and regions. In addition to the influence of ecosystem services on human well-being depicted here, other factors—including otherenvironmental factors as well as economic, social, technological, and cultural factors—influence human well-being, and ecosystems are inturn affected by changes in human well-being. (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment)
governments, multinational companies, the United Nations, andcivil society organizations. Stakeholders have become more involved in decision-making. Given the multiple actors whose decisions now strongly influence ecosystems, the challenge ofproviding information to decision-makers has grown. At the sametime, the new institutional landscape may provide an
unprecedented opportunity for information concerning ecosystems to make a major difference. Improvements in ecosystemmanagement to enhance human well-being will require new institutional and policy arrangements and changes in rights and access to resources that may be more possible today under these
conditions of rapid social change than they have ever been before.
Like the benefits of increased education or improved governance, the protection, restoration, and enhancement of ecosystemservices tends to have multiple and synergistic benefits. Already,many governments are beginning to recognize the need for more
effective management of these basic life-support systems. Examples of significant progress toward sustainable management of biological resources can also be found in civil society, in indigenous
and local communities, and in the private sector.

1.3 Conceptual Framework
The conceptual framework for the MA places human well-being
as the central focus for assessment, while recognizing that biodiversity and ecosystems also have intrinsic value and that people takedecisions concerning ecosystems based on considerations of wellbeing as well as intrinsic value. (See Box 1.2.) The MA conceptual framework assumes that a dynamic interaction exists between
people and other parts of ecosystems, with the changing humancondition serving to both directly and indirectly drive change inecosystems and with changes in ecosystems causing changes inhuman well-being. At the same time, many other factors independent of the environment change the human condition, and many
natural forces are influencing ecosystems.
The MA focuses particular attention on the linkages between
ecosystem services and human well-being. The assessment deals
with the full range of ecosystems—from those relatively undisturbed, such as natural forests, to landscapes with mixed patternsof human use and ecosystems intensively managed and modified
by humans, such as agricultural land and urban areas.

MA Conceptual Framework
A full assessment of the interactions between people and ecosystems requires a multiscale approach because it better reflects
the multiscale nature of decision-making, allows the examinationof driving forces that may be exogenous to particular regions, andprovides a means of examining the differential impact of ecosystem changes and policy responses on different regions and groups
within regions.
This section explains in greater detail the characteristics ofeach of the components of the MA conceptual framework, moving clockwise from the lower left corner of the Figure in Box 1.2.

1.3.1 Ecosystems and Their Services
An ecosystem is a dynamic complex of plant, animal, and microorganism communities and the nonliving environment interacting as a functional unit. Humans are an integral part ofecosystems. Ecosystems provide a variety of benefits to people,
including provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting services. Provisioning services are the products people obtain fromecosystems, such as food, fuel, fiber, fresh water, and genetic resources. Regulating services are the benefits people obtain fromthe regulation of ecosystem processes, including air quality maintenance, climate regulation, erosion control, regulation of humandiseases, and water purification. Cultural services are the nonmaterial benefits people obtain from ecosystems through spiritual enrichment, cognitive development, reflection, recreation, andaesthetic experiences. Supporting services are those that are necessary for the production of all other ecosystem services, such as
primary production, production of oxygen, and soil formation.
Biodiversity and ecosystems are closely related concepts. Biodiversity is the variability among living organisms from all sources,
including terrestrial, marine, and other aquatic ecosystems and theecological complexes of which they are part. It includes diversity
within and between species and diversity of ecosystems. Diversity
is a structural feature of ecosystems, and the variability among
ecosystems is an element of biodiversity. Products of biodiversity
include many of the services produced by ecosystems (such as
food and genetic resources), and changes in biodiversity can influence all the other services they provide. In addition to the important role of biodiversity in providing ecosystem services, thediversity of living species has intrinsic value independent of any
human concern.
The concept of an ecosystem provides a valuable framework
for analyzing and acting on the linkages between people and theenvironment. For that reason, the ‘‘ecosystem approach’’ has beenendorsed by the Convention on Biological Diversity, and the MA
conceptual framework is entirely consistent with this approach.
The CBD states that the ecosystem approach is a strategy for the
integrated management of land, water, and living resources that
promotes conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way.
This approach recognizes that humans, with their cultural diversity, are an integral component of many ecosystems.
In order to implement the ecosystem approach, decisionmakers need to understand the multiple effects on an ecosystem ofany management or policy change. By way of analogy, decisionmakers would not make a decision about financial policy in acountry without examining the condition of the economic system, since information on the economy of a single sector such as
manufacturing would be insufficient. The same need to examine
the consequences of changes for multiple sectors applies to ecosystems. For instance, subsidies for fertilizer use may increase foodproduction, but sound decisions also require information onwhether the potential reduction in the harvests of downstream

29

fisheries as a result of water quality degradation from the fertilizer
runoff might outweigh those benefits.
For the purpose of analysis and assessment, a pragmatic viewof ecosystem boundaries must be adopted, depending on thequestions being asked. A well-defined ecosystem has strong interactions among its components and weak interactions across its
boundaries. A useful choice of ecosystem boundary is one where
a number of discontinuities coincide, such as in the distributionof organisms, soil types, drainage basins, and depth in a waterbody. At a larger scale, regional and even globally distributed ecosystems can be evaluated based on a commonality of basic
structural units. The global assessment being undertaken by the
MA reports on marine, coastal, inland water, forest, dryland, island, mountain, polar, cultivated, and urban regions. These regions are not ecosystems themselves, but each contains a numberof ecosystems. (See Box 1.3.)
People seek multiple services from ecosystems and thus perceive the condition of given ecosystems in relation to their ability
to provide the services desired. Various methods can be used toassess the ability of ecosystems to deliver particular services. With
those answers in hand, stakeholders have the information theyneed to decide on a mix of services best meeting their needs. The
MA considers criteria and methods to provide an integrated viewof the condition of ecosystems. The condition of each categoryof ecosystem services is evaluated in somewhat different ways,
although in general a full assessment of any service requires considerations of stocks, flows, and resilience of the service.

1.3.2 Human Well-being and Poverty Reduction
Human well-being has multiple constituents, including the basic
material for a good life, freedom of choice and action, health,good social relations, and security. Poverty is also multidimensional and has been defined as the pronounced deprivation ofwell-being. How well-being, ill-being, or poverty are experienced and expressed depends on context and situation, reflecting
local physical, social, and personal factors such as geography, environment, age, gender, and culture. In all contexts, however, ecosystems are essential for human well-being through theirprovisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting services.
Human intervention in ecosystems can amplify the benefits tohuman society. However, evidence in recent decades of escalating
human impacts on ecological systems worldwide raises concerns
about the spatial and temporal consequences of ecosystem changes
detrimental to human well-being. Ecosystem changes affecthuman well-being in the following ways:• Security is affected both by changes in provisioning services,which affect supplies of food and other goods and the likelihood of conflict over declining resources, and by changes inregulating services, which could influence the frequency andmagnitude of floods, droughts, landslides, or other catastrophes. It can also be affected by changes in cultural services as,
for example, when the loss of important ceremonial or spiritual attributes of ecosystems contributes to the weakening ofsocial relations in a community. These changes in turn affectmaterial well-being, health, freedom and choice, security, andgood social relations.
• Access to basic material for a good life is strongly linked toboth provisioning services such as food and fiber production
and regulating services, including water purification.
• Health is strongly linked to both provisioning services such as
food production and regulating services, including those that
influence the distribution of disease-transmitting insects andof irritants and pathogens in water and air. Health can also be30

Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Current State and Trends

BOX 1.2

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Conceptual Framework
Changes in factors that indirectly affect ecosystems, such as population,technology, and lifestyle (upper right corner of figure), can lead to changes
in factors directly affecting ecosystems, such as the catch of fisheries orthe application of fertilizers to increase food production (lower right corner). The resulting changes in the ecosystem (lower left corner) cause theecosystem services to change and thereby affect human well-being.

These interactions can take place at more than one scale and can crossscales. For example, a global market may lead to regional loss of forest
cover, which increases flood magnitude along a local stretch of a river.
Similarly, the interactions can take place across different time scales. Actions can be taken either to respond to negative changes or to enhance
positive changes at almost all points in this framework (black cross bars).

Source: Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

linked to cultural services through recreational and spiritual
benefits.
• Social relations are affected by changes to cultural services,which affect the quality of human experience.
• Freedom of choice and action is largely predicated on the existence of the other components of well-being and are thus

influenced by changes in provisioning, regulating, or cultural
services from ecosystems.
Human well-being can be enhanced through sustainablehuman interactions with ecosystems supported by necessary instruments, institutions, organizations, and technology. Creation ofthese through participation and transparency may contribute toMA Conceptual Framework

31

BOX 1.3

Reporting Categories Used in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
The MA used 10 categories of systems to report its global findings. (SeeTable.) These categories are not ecosystems themselves; each contains
a number of ecosystems. The MA reporting categories are not mutually
exclusive: their areas can and do overlap. Ecosystems within each category share a suite of biological, climatic, and social factors that tend todiffer across categories. Because these reporting categories overlap, any
place on Earth may fall into more than one category. Thus, for example,
a wetland ecosystem in a coastal region may be examined both in the MA
analysis of ‘‘coastal systems’’ as well as in its analysis of ‘‘inland water
systems.’’

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Reporting Categories
Category

Central Concept

Boundary Limits for Mapping

MarineOcean, with fishing typically a major
driver of change

Marine areas where the sea is deeper than 50 meters.

CoastalInterface between ocean and land,
extending seawards to about the
middle of the continental shelf andinland to include all areas strongly
influenced by the proximity to the
ocean

Area between 50 meters below mean sea level and 50 meters above the high tide level orextending landward to a distance 100 kilometers from shore. Includes coral reefs, intertidal
zones, estuaries, coastal aquaculture, and seagrass communities.

Inland water

Permanent water bodies inland fromthe coastal zone, and areas whose
ecology and use are dominated by
the permanent, seasonal, or intermittent occurrence of flooded conditions

Rivers, lakes, floodplains, reservoirs, and wetlands; includes inland saline systems. Note that
the Ramsar Convention considers ‘‘wetlands’’ to include both inland water and coastal categories.

ForestLands dominated by trees; often
used for timber, fuelwood, and nontimber forest products

A canopy cover of at least 40% by woody plants taller than 5 meters. The existence of manyother definitions is acknowledged, and other limits (such as crown cover greater than 10%, asused by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) are also reported. Includes temporarily cut-over forests and plantations; excludes orchards and agroforests where
the main products are food crops.

DrylandLands where plant production is limited by water availability; the dominant uses are large mammal
herbivory, including livestock grazing, and cultivation

Drylands as defined by the Convention to Combat Desertification, namely lands where annual
precipitation is less than two thirds of potential evaporation, from dry subhumid areas (ratio
ranges 0.50–0.65), through semiarid, arid, and hyper-arid (ratio ⬍0.05), but excluding polar
areas; drylands include cultivated lands, scrublands, shrublands, grasslands, semi-deserts, andtrue deserts.

IslandLands isolated by surrounding
water, with a high proportion ofcoast to hinterland

Islands of at least 1.5 hectares included in the ESRI ArcWorld Country Boundary dataset.

Mountain

Steep and high lands

As defined by Mountain Watch using criteria based on elevation alone, and at lower elevation,
on a combination of elevation, slope, and local elevation range. Specifically, elevation ⬎2,500
meters, elevation 1,500–2,500 meters and slope ⬎2 degrees, elevation 1,000–1,500 metersand slope ⬎5 degrees or local elevation range (7 kilometers radius) ⬎300 meters, elevation
300–1,000 meters and local elevation range (7 kilometers radius) ⬎300 meters, isolated innerbasins and plateaus less than 25 square kilometers extent that are surrounded by mountains.

Polar

High-latitude systems frozen for
most of the year

Includes ice caps, areas underlain by permafrost, tundra, polar deserts, and polar coastal
areas. Excludes high-altitude cold systems in low latitudes.

CultivatedLands dominated by domesticatedplant species, used for and substantially changed by crop, agroforestry,or aquaculture production

Areas in which at least 30% of the landscape comes under cultivation in any particular year.
Includes orchards, agroforestry, and integrated agriculture-aquaculture systems.

Urban

Built environments with a highhuman density

Known human settlements with a population of 5,000 or more, with boundaries delineated byobserving persistent night-time lights or by inferring areal extent in the cases where suchobservations are absent.

32

Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Current State and Trends

freedoms and choice as well as to increased economic, social, andecological security. By ecological security, we mean the minimum
level of ecological stock needed to ensure a sustainable flow of
ecosystem services.
Yet the benefits conferred by institutions and technology areneither automatic nor equally shared. In particular, such opportunities are more readily grasped by richer than poorer countries
and people; some institutions and technologies mask or exacerbate environmental problems; responsible governance, while essential, is not easily achieved; participation in decision-making, anessential element of responsible governance, is expensive in timeand resources to maintain. Unequal access to ecosystem services
has often elevated the well-being of small segments of the population at the expense of others.
Sometimes the consequences of the depletion and degradationof ecosystem services can be mitigated by the substitution ofknowledge and of manufactured or human capital. For example,
the addition of fertilizer in agricultural systems has been able tooffset declining soil fertility in many regions of the world where
people have sufficient economic resources to purchase these inputs, and water treatment facilities can sometimes substitute forthe role of watersheds and wetlands in water purification. But
ecosystems are complex and dynamic systems and there are limits
to substitution possibilities, especially with regulating, cultural,and supporting services. No substitution is possible for the extinction of culturally important species such as tigers or whales, forinstance, and substitutions may be economically impractical forthe loss of services such as erosion control or climate regulation.
Moreover, the scope for substitutions varies by social, economic,
and cultural conditions. For some people, especially the poorest,
substitutes and choices are very limited. For those who are better
off, substitution may be possible through trade, investment, andtechnology.
Because of the inertia in both ecological and human systems,
the consequences of ecosystem changes made today may not be
felt for decades. Thus, sustaining ecosystem services, and thereby
human well-being, requires a full understanding and wise management of the relationships between human activities, ecosystemchange, and well-being over the short, medium, and long term.
Excessive current use of ecosystem services compromises their future availability. This can be prevented by ensuring that the use issustainable.
Achieving sustainable use requires effective and efficient institutions that can provide the mechanisms through which conceptsof freedom, justice, fairness, basic capabilities, and equity govern
the access to and use of ecosystem services. Such institutions may
also need to mediate conflicts between individual and social interests that arise.
The best way to manage ecosystems to enhance human wellbeing will differ if the focus is on meeting needs of the poor andweak or the rich and powerful. For both groups, ensuring thelong-term supply of ecosystem services is essential. But for thepoor, an equally critical need is to provide more equitable andsecure access to ecosystem services.

1.3.3 Drivers of Change
Understanding the factors that cause changes in ecosystems andecosystem services is essential to designing interventions that capture positive impacts and minimize negative ones. In the MA, a‘‘driver’’ is any factor that changes an aspect of an ecosystem. A
direct driver unequivocally influences ecosystem processes andcan therefore be identified and measured to differing degrees ofaccuracy. An indirect driver operates more diffusely, often by al-tering one or more direct drivers, and its influence is establishedby understanding its effect on a direct driver. Both indirect anddirect drivers often operate synergistically. Changes in land cover,for example, can increase the likelihood of introduction of alien
invasive species. Similarly, technological advances can increase
rates of economic growth.
The MA explicitly recognizes the role of decision-makers
who affect ecosystems, ecosystem services, and human wellbeing. Decisions are made at three organizational levels, although
the distinction between those levels is often diffuse and difficult
to define:• by individuals and small groups at the local level (such as afield or forest stand) who directly alter some part of the ecosystem;• by public and private decision-makers at the municipal, provincial, and national levels; and• by public and private decision-makers at the international
level, such as through international conventions and multilateral agreements.
The decision-making process is complex and multidimensional. We refer to a driver that can be influenced by a decisionmaker as an endogenous driver and one over which the decisionmaker does not have control as an exogenous driver. The amountof fertilizer applied on a farm is an endogenous driver from thestandpoint of the farmer, for example, while the price of the fertilizer is an exogenous driver, since the farmer’s decisions have little
direct influence on price. The specific temporal, spatial, and organizational scale dependencies of endogenous and exogenous drivers and the specific linkages and interactions among drivers areassessed in the MA.
Whether a driver is exogenous or endogenous to a decisionmaker is dependent upon the spatial and temporal scale. For example, a local decision-maker can directly influence the choice oftechnology, changes in land use, and external inputs (such as fertilizers or irrigation), but has little control over prices and markets,
property rights, technology development, or the local climate. In
contrast, a national or regional decision-maker has more control
over many factors, such as macroeconomic policy, technology development, property rights, trade barriers, prices, and markets.
But on the short time scale, that individual has little control overthe climate or global population. On the longer time scale, drivers
that are exogenous to a decision-maker in the short run, suchas population, become endogenous since the decision-maker can
influence them through, for instance, education, the advancement of women, and migration policies.
The indirect drivers of change are primarily:• demographic (such as population size, age and gender structure, and spatial distribution);• economic (such as national and per capita income, macroeconomic policies, international trade, and capital flows);• sociopolitical (such as democratization, the roles of women,of civil society, and of the private sector, and international
dispute mechanisms);• scientific and technological (such as rates of investments inresearch and development and the rates of adoption of newtechnologies, including biotechnologies and information
technologies); and• cultural and religious (such as choices individuals make about
what and how much to consume and what they value).
The interaction of several of these drivers, in turn, affects levels of resource consumption and differences in consumption bothwithin and between countries. Clearly these drivers are changing—population and the world economy are growing, for instance, there are major advances in information technology andMA Conceptual Frameworkbiotechnology, and the world is becoming more interconnected.
Changes in these drivers are projected to increase the demand forand consumption of food, fiber, clean water, and energy, which
will in turn affect the direct drivers. The direct drivers are primarily physical, chemical, and biological—such as land cover change,
climate change, air and water pollution, irrigation, use of fertilizers, harvesting, and the introduction of alien invasive species.
Change is apparent here too: the climate is changing, species
ranges are shifting, alien species are spreading, and land degradation continues.
An important point is that any decision can have consequences external to the decision framework. These consequences
are called externalities because they are not part of the decisionmaking calculus. Externalities can have positive or negative effects. For example, a decision to subsidize fertilizers to increase
crop production might result in substantial degradation of water
quality from the added nutrients and degradation of downstream
fisheries. But it is also possible to have positive externalities. A
beekeeper might be motivated by the profits to be made fromselling honey, for instance, but neighboring orchards could produce more apples because of enhanced pollination arising fromthe presence of the bees.
Multiple interacting drivers cause changes in ecosystem services. There are functional interdependencies between andamong the indirect and direct drivers of change, and, in turn,changes in ecological services lead to feedbacks on the drivers ofchanges in ecological services. Synergetic driver combinations arecommon. The many processes of globalization lead to new forms
of interactions between drivers of changes in ecosystem services.

1.3.4 Cross-scale Interactions and Assessment
An effective assessment of ecosystems and human well-being cannot be conducted at a single temporal or spatial scale. Thus the
MA conceptual framework includes both of these dimensions.
Ecosystem changes that may have little impact on human wellbeing over days or weeks (soil erosion, for instance) may havepronounced impacts over years or decades (declining agricultural
productivity). Similarly, changes at a local scale may have little
impact on some services at that scale (as in the local impact offorest loss on water availability) but major impacts at large scales(forest loss in a river basin changing the timing and magnitude ofdownstream flooding).
Ecosystem processes and services are typically most strongly
expressed, are most easily observed, or have their dominant controls or consequences at particular spatial and temporal scales.
They often exhibit a characteristic scale—the typical extent or
duration over which processes have their impact. Spatial and temporal scales are often closely related. For instance, food production is a localized service of an ecosystem and changes on a weekly
basis, water regulation is regional and changes on a monthly orseasonal basis, and climate regulation may take place at a global
scale over decades.
Assessments need to be conducted at spatial and temporalscales appropriate to the process or phenomenon being examined.
Those done over large areas generally use data at coarse resolutions, which may not detect fine-resolution processes. Even if
data are collected at a fine level of detail, the process of averaging
in order to present findings at the larger scale causes local patterns
or anomalies to disappear. This is particularly problematic forprocesses exhibiting thresholds and nonlinearities. For example,
even though a number of fish stocks exploited in a particular area
might have collapsed due to overfishing, average catches across all
stocks (including healthier stocks) would not reveal the extent of33

the problem. Assessors, if they are aware of such thresholds andhave access to high-resolution data, can incorporate such information even in a large-scale assessment. Yet an assessment done at
smaller spatial scales can help identify important dynamics of thesystem that might otherwise be overlooked. Likewise, phenomena and processes that occur at much larger scales, although expressed locally, may go unnoticed in purely local-scaleassessments. Increased carbon dioxide concentrations or decreased
stratospheric ozone concentrations have local effects, for instance,
but it would be difficult to trace the causality of the effects without an examination of the overall global process.
Time scale is also very important in conducting assessments.
Humans tend not to think beyond one or two generations. If
an assessment covers a shorter time period than the characteristic
temporal scale, it may not adequately capture variability associatedwith long-term cycles, such as glaciation. Slow changes are often
harder to measure, as is the case with the impact of climate changeon the geographic distribution of species or populations. Moreover, both ecological and human systems have substantial inertia,
and the impact of changes occurring today may not be seen foryears or decades. For example, some fisheries’ catches may increase for several years even after they have reached unsustainablelevels because of the large number of juvenile fish produced before that level was reached.
Social, political, and economic processes also have characteristic scales, which may vary widely in duration and extent. Those of
ecological and sociopolitical processes often do not match. Many
environmental problems originate from this mismatch between
the scale at which the ecological process occurs, the scale at which
decisions are made, and the scale of institutions for decision-making. A purely local-scale assessment, for instance, may discoverthat the most effective societal response requires action that canoccur only at a national scale (such as the removal of a subsidy
or the establishment of a regulation). Moreover, it may lack therelevance and credibility necessary to stimulate and inform national or regional changes. On the other hand, a purely global
assessment may lack both the relevance and the credibility necessary to lead to changes in ecosystem management at the local scale
where action is needed. Outcomes at a given scale are often heavily influenced by interactions of ecological, socioeconomic, andpolitical factors emanating from other scales. Thus focusing solely
on a single scale is likely to miss interactions with other scales thatare critically important in understanding ecosystem determinants
and their implications for human well-being.
The choice of the spatial or temporal scale for an assessment
is politically laden, since it may intentionally or unintentionallyprivilege certain groups. The selection of assessment scale with
its associated level of detail implicitly favors particular systems ofknowledge, types of information, and modes of expression overothers. For example, non-codified information or knowledge systems of minority populations are often missed when assessments
are undertaken at larger spatial scales or higher levels of aggregation. Reflecting on the political consequences of scale and boundary choices is an important prerequisite to exploring what multiand cross-scale analysis in the MA might contribute to decisionmaking and public policy processes at various scales.

1.4 Values Associated with Ecosystems
Current decision-making processes often ignore or underestimate
the value of ecosystem services. Decision-making concerning
ecosystems and their services can be particularly challenging because different disciplines, philosophical views, and schools of

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Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Current State and Trends

thought assess the value of ecosystems differently. One paradigmof value, known as the utilitarian (anthropocentric) concept, isbased on the principle of humans’ preference satisfaction (welfare). In this case, ecosystems and the services they provide havevalue to human societies because people derive utility from theiruse, either directly or indirectly (use values). Within this utilitarian concept of value, people also give value to ecosystem services
that they are not currently using (non-use values). Non-use values, usually known as existence values, involve the case where
humans ascribe value to knowing that a resource exists even if
they never use that resource directly. These often involve thedeeply held historical, national, ethical, religious, and spiritual values people ascribe to ecosystems—the values that the MA recognizes as cultural services of ecosystems.
A different, non-utilitarian value paradigm holds that something can have intrinsic value—that is, it can be of value in andfor itself—irrespective of its utility for someone else. From theperspective of many ethical, religious, and cultural points of view,
ecosystems may have intrinsic value, independent of their contribution to human well-being.
The utilitarian and non-utilitarian value paradigms overlap
and interact in many ways, but they use different metrics, with nocommon denominator, and cannot usually be aggregated, although both paradigms of value are used in decision-making
processes.
Under the utilitarian approach, a wide range of methodologies
has been developed to attempt to quantify the benefits of different
ecosystem services. These methods are particularly well developed for provisioning services, but recent work has also improved
the ability to value regulating and other services. The choice of
valuation technique in any given instance is dictated by the characteristics of the case and by data availability. (See Box 1.4.)
Non-utilitarian value proceeds from a variety of ethical, cultural, religious, and philosophical bases. These differ in the specific entities that are deemed to have intrinsic value and in theinterpretation of what having intrinsic value means. Intrinsic
value may complement or counterbalance considerations of utilitarian value. For example, if the aggregate utility of the services
provided by an ecosystem (as measured by its utilitarian value)
outweighs the value of converting it to another use, its intrinsic
value may then be complementary and provide an additional impetus for conserving the ecosystem. If, however, economic valuation indicates that the value of converting the ecosystem
outweighs the aggregate value of its services, its ascribed intrinsic
value may be deemed great enough to warrant a social decision
to conserve it anyway. Such decisions are essentially political, noteconomic. In contemporary democracies these decisions are madeby parliaments or legislatures or by regulatory agencies mandated
to do so by law. The sanctions for violating laws recognizing an
entity’s intrinsic value may be regarded as a measure of the degreeof intrinsic value ascribed to them. The decisions taken by businesses, local communities, and individuals also can involve considerations of both utilitarian and non-utilitarian values.
The mere act of quantifying the value of ecosystem services
cannot by itself change the incentives affecting their use or misuse. Several changes in current practice may be required to takebetter account of these values. The MA assesses the use of information on ecosystem service values in decision-making. The goal
is to improve decision-making processes and tools and to provide
feedback regarding the kinds of information that can have themost influence.

1.5 Assessment Tools
The information base exists in any country to undertake an assessment within the framework of the MA. That said, although new

BOX 1.4

Valuation of Ecosystem Services
Valuation can be used in many ways: to assess the total contributionthat ecosystems make to human well-being, to understand the incentives that individual decision-makers face in managing ecosystems in
different ways, and to evaluate the consequences of alternative
courses of action. The MA uses valuation primarily in the latter sense:
as a tool that enhances the ability of decision-makers to evaluate tradeoffs between alternative ecosystem management regimes and coursesof social actions that alter the use of ecosystems and the multiple
services they provide. This usually requires assessing the change inthe mix (the value) of services provided by an ecosystem resulting
from a given change in its management.
Most of the work involved in estimating the change in the value ofthe flow of benefits provided by an ecosystem involves estimating thechange in the physical flow of benefits (quantifying biophysical relations) and tracing through and quantifying a chain of causality betweenchanges in ecosystem condition and human welfare. A common problem in valuation is that information is only available on some of thelinks in the chain and often in incompatible units. The MA can make amajor contribution by making various disciplines better aware of whatis needed to ensure that their work can be combined with that of others
to allow a full assessment of the consequences of altering ecosystem
state and function.
The ecosystem values in this sense are only one of the bases on
which decisions on ecosystem management are and should be made.
Many other factors, including notions of intrinsic value and other objectives that society might have (such as equity among different groups
or generations), will also feed into the decision framework. Even when
decisions are made on other bases, however, estimates of changes inutilitarian value provide invaluable information.

data sets (for example, from remote sensing) providing globallyconsistent information make a global assessment like the MA
more rigorous, there are still many challenges that must be dealt
with in using these data at global or local scales. Among thesechallenges are biases in the geographic and temporal coverage ofthe data and in the types of data collected. Data availability forindustrial countries is greater than that for developing ones, anddata for certain resources such as crop production are more readily
available than data for fisheries, fuelwood, or biodiversity. The
MA makes extensive use of both biophysical and socioeconomic
indicators, which combine data into policy-relevant measures thatprovide the basis for assessment and decision-making.
Models can be used to illuminate interactions among systems
and drivers, as well as to make up for data deficiencies—for instance, by providing estimates where observations are lacking.
The MA makes use of environmental system models that can beused, for example, to measure the consequences of land coverchange for river flow or the consequences of climate change forthe distribution of species. It also uses human system models thatcan examine, for instance, the impact of changes in ecosystems on
production, consumption, and investment decisions by households or that allow the economy-wide impacts of a change inproduction in a particular sector like agriculture to be evaluated.
Finally, integrated models, combining both the environmental
and human systems linkages, can increasingly be used at bothglobal and sub-global scales.
The MA incorporates both formal scientific information andtraditional or local knowledge. Traditional societies have nurtured

MA Conceptual Framework
and refined systems of knowledge of direct value to those societies
but also of considerable value to assessments undertaken at regional and global scales. This information often is unknown toscience and can be an expression of other relationships between
society and nature in general and of sustainable ways of managing
natural resources in particular. To be credible and useful to decision-makers, all sources of information, whether scientific, traditional, or practitioner knowledge, must be critically assessed andvalidated as part of the assessment process through procedures relevant to the form of knowledge.
Since policies for dealing with the deterioration of ecosystemservices are concerned with the future consequences of current
actions, the development of scenarios of medium- to long-termchanges in ecosystems, services, and drivers can be particularly
helpful for decision-makers. Scenarios are typically developed
through the joint involvement of decision-makers and scientificexperts, and they represent a promising mechanism for linking
scientific information to decision-making processes. They do not
attempt to predict the future but instead are designed to indicate
what science can and cannot say about the future consequencesof alternative plausible choices that might be taken in the coming
years.
The MA uses scenarios to summarize and communicate thediverse trajectories that the world’s ecosystems may take in future
decades. Scenarios are plausible alternative futures, each an example of what might happen under particular assumptions. They canbe used as a systematic method for thinking creatively about complex, uncertain futures. In this way, they help us understand theupcoming choices that need to be made and highlight developments in the present. The MA developed scenarios that connect
possible changes in drivers (which may be unpredictable or uncontrollable) with human demands for ecosystem services. The
scenarios link these demands, in turn, to the futures of the services
themselves and the aspects of human welfare that depend on
them. The scenario building exercise breaks new ground in several areas:• development of scenarios for global futures linked explicitly toecosystem services and the human consequences of ecosystemchange,• consideration of trade-offs among individual ecosystem services within the ‘‘bundle’’ of benefits that any particular ecosystem potentially provides to society,• assessment of modeling capabilities for linking socioeconomic
drivers and ecosystem services, and• consideration of ambiguous futures as well as quantifiable uncertainties.
The credibility of assessments is closely linked to how they
address what is not known in addition to what is known. The
consistent treatment of uncertainty is therefore essential for the
clarity and utility of assessment reports. As part of any assessment
process, it is crucial to estimate the uncertainty of findings even if
a detailed quantitative appraisal of uncertainty is unavailable.

1.6 Strategies and Interventions
The MA assesses the use and effectiveness of a wide range ofoptions for responding to the need to sustainably use, conserve,
and restore ecosystems and the services they provide. These options include incorporating the value of ecosystems in decisions,channeling diffuse ecosystem benefits to decision-makers with focused local interests, creating markets and property rights, educating and dispersing knowledge, and investing to improve
ecosystems and the services they provide. As seen in Box 1.2 on

35

the MA conceptual framework, different types of response options can affect the relationships of indirect to direct drivers, theinfluence of direct drivers on ecosystems, the human demand forecosystem services, or the impact of changes in human well-being
on indirect drivers. An effective strategy for managing ecosystems
will involve a mix of interventions at all points in this conceptual
framework.
Mechanisms for accomplishing these interventions include
laws, regulations, and enforcement schemes; partnerships and collaborations; the sharing of information and knowledge; and public
and private action. The choice of options to be considered will
be greatly influenced by both the temporal and the physical scale
influenced by decisions, the uncertainty of outcomes, culturalcontext, and the implications for equity and trade-offs. Institutions at different levels have different response options available
to them, and special care is required to ensure policy coherence.
Decision-making processes are value-based and combine political and technical elements to varying degrees. Where technicalinput can play a role, a range of tools is available to help decisionmakers choose among strategies and interventions, including costbenefit analysis, game theory, and policy exercises. The selectionof analytical tools should be determined by the context of thedecision, key characteristics of the decision problem, and the criteria considered to be important by the decision-makers. Information from these analytical frameworks is always combined with
the intuition, experience, and interests of the decision-maker inshaping the final decisions.
Risk assessment, including ecological risk assessment, is an established discipline and has a significant potential for informing
the decision process. Finding thresholds and identifying the potential for irreversible change are important for the decision-making process. Similarly, environmental impact assessments designed
to evaluate the impact of particular projects and strategic environmental assessments designed to evaluate the impact of policies
both represent important mechanisms for incorporating the findings of an ecosystem assessment into decision-making processes.
Changes also may be required in decision-making processes
themselves. Experience to date suggests that a number of mechanisms can improve the process of making decisions about ecosystem services. Broadly accepted norms for decision-making processinclude the following characteristics. Did the process:• bring the best available information to bear?
• function transparently, use locally grounded knowledge, andinvolve all those with an interest in a decision?
• pay special attention to equity and to the most vulnerable
populations?
• use decision analytical frameworks that take account of thestrengths and limits of individual, group, and organizational
information processing and action?
• consider whether an intervention or its outcome is irreversible
and incorporate procedures to evaluate the outcomes of actions and learn from them?
• ensure that those making the decisions are accountable?
• strive for efficiency in choosing among interventions?
• take account of thresholds, irreversibility, and cumulative,
cross-scale, and marginal effects and of local, regional, andglobal costs, risk, and benefits?
The policy or management changes made to address problems
and opportunities related to ecosystems and their services,
whether at local scales or national or international scales, need tobe adaptive and flexible in order to benefit from past experience,to hedge against risk, and to consider uncertainty. The understanding of ecosystem dynamics will always be limited, socioeconomic systems will continue to change, and outside determinants

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Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Current State and Trends

can never be fully anticipated. Decision-makers should consider
whether a course of action is reversible and should incorporate,
whenever possible, procedures to evaluate the outcomes of actions and learn from them. Debate about exactly how to do thiscontinues in discussions of adaptive management, social learning,

safe minimum standards, and the precautionary principle. But thecore message of all approaches is the same: acknowledge the limitsof human understanding, give special consideration to irreversible
changes, and evaluate the impacts of decisions as they unfold.