ABSTRACT
The concept of sustainability is used to estimate the state and potential of an area or an activity to achieve ‘sustainable development’. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) operationalizes sustainability from a human-centred ecosystems perspective, with indirect driving forces (e.g. population, technologies, and lifestyles) translating into direct drivers (e.g. land use changes) that put pressure on ecosystem services, which directly affect human well-being. All interactions act at different scales, from the local to the global. Ecosystem services, ‘the benefits people obtain from ecosystems’ (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2003: 53), are the core of the framework, grouped into 21 single services within four broad categories of provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting services. The MA puts a special focus on the identification of trade-offs and synergies between different ecosystem services that depend on specific management practices in an ecosystem.
