Regional- and Planetary-scale "Goods and Services" Provided by the Amazon Basin: Examining Trade-Offs Between Human Needs and Environmental Function
Jonathan
A.
Foley, Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE), University of Wisconsin, 1710 University Avenue, Madison, WI 53726 USA,, jfoley@wisc.edu
(Presenting)
The Amazon is one of the most important bioregions on the planet, and already provides extremely important ecosystem “goods and services” to humankind – including a wide range of valuable agricultural, forest & timber, mineral and pharmaceutical commodities. The Amazon also contains an incredibly rich diversity of plant, animal and microbial life, and is thus an intrinsically valuable part of the biosphere. However, the Amazon also provides many larger-scale services – often neglected in discussions of tropical forests – that play a role in the physical climate system, hydrologic cycle, and carbon cycle of the globe.
Here we will discuss how we may consider the full “portfolio” of ecosystem goods and services provided by the Amazon basin, including: (1) regional-scale “provisioning services”, such as the production of agricultural and timber commodities; (2) regional-scale “supporting services”, such as the maintenance of biological diversity and habitats; and (3) planetary-scale “supporting services”, such as modulating a significant portion of the carbon cycle, hydrological cycle and physical climate systems of the planet. We will also present a conceptual framework for considering the tradeoffs between human actions and changes in ecosystem goods and services in the Amazon. Finally, we will discuss how LBA science can help inform policy-makers towards the ultimate goal of adaptively managing this complex system, allowing for dynamic tradeoffs between human needs, the flow of different ecosystem goods and services, and the health of the biosphere.
Submetido por Colin M Stefan em 19-MAR-2004
Tema Científico do LBA: LC (Mudanças dos Usos da Terra e da Vegetação)