ABSTRACT
The concept of ecosystem services covers a very wide range of services, not only those of direct use but also various regulating services such as flood regulation and atmospheric-composition stabilization, as pointed out by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005). For example, global warming can be interpreted as a problem of sustainable use of an ecosystem service, that is, atmospheric-composition stabilization. Conservation of biodiversity, another important global environmental issue, can also be interpreted as a problem of sustainable use of ecosystem services, because either biodiversity itself provides ecosystem services or conservation of biodiversity is essential to produce some ecosystem services. Along this line of argument, the concept of sustainable development proposed by the Brundtland Report (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987) can be redefined as the alleviation of poverty (in the sense of poverty as a lack of opportunity to meet basic needs) through utilizing ecosystem services in a sustainable manner.
