ABSTRACT
The ecosystem services concept (MA 2005; de Groot et al., 2010; Haines-Young, 2011) has come to be acknowledged as an instrument that is useful in every step of the process of sustainable environmental management. The subject has been studied for decades (Costanza et al., 1997; Daily, 1997), but the term was introduces to the general public in 2005. Ecosystem services are variously defined as “the benefits people obtain from the ecosystems” (MA 2005) and “the contributions of ecosystem structure and function-in combination with other inputs-to human well-being” (Burkhard et al., 2012). A proper analysis of ecosystems services requires adoption of a transdisciplinary research approach that integrates across scientific disciplines and links environmental and socio-ecological concepts. The essence of this concept is in the emphasis placed on understanding the inter-relationships between the ecological variables while taking properly into account the presence of humans in the system. Without consideration of the anthropogenic factor (i.e., people who benefit from the ecosystem services and who are a major driver for environmental changes), the concept would not be able to sufficiently explain the functionality of an environmental system. Moreover, the concept of Ecosystem Services (ES) is pivotal to human wellbeing. Ultimately, it is “stakeholder-driven concept” (Koschke et al., 2014) and so it is essential for communication to occur among the relevant social, political, and environmental units.
