Ecosystem Services

The UK government's Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology produced a useful review in March 2007, Ecosystem Services, which outlines what ecosystem services are, and how provisions for maintaining them in the UK could be incorporated into policy frameworks.

The main ecosystem services come under four headings:

• Supporting services: nutrient cycling, oxygen production and soil formation. These underpin the provision of the other 'service' categories:
• Provisioning services: food, fibre, fuel and water.
• Regulating services: carbon stores and sinks, biodiversity, climate regulation, water purification and flood protection.
• Cultural services: education, recreation, and aesthetic value.

Normally we take these for granted, but just how important they are becomes apparent when things go wrong, for example in flooding events. Despite the importance of these functions for the larger economy, there have only been limited examples of recognising and paying for these services. This has been achieved through government ownership of land, for example to secure water supplies; or government grants to private landowners to enhance biodiversity or the landscape. Habitats have been destroyed or degraded in favour of more tangible economic gain, for example for agriculture. The rainforests of Brazil are being cut down and burnt for just this reason. In the UK, floodplains and moorlands have been drained, causing carbon dioxide to be released into the atmosphere and flooding events to increase.

With the development of a market-based mechanism to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide, where carbon offsets can go into preserving or restoring natural habitats, it is possible for private landowners and local communities to be paid for the carbon storage or carbon absorbing service provided by their land.

Forest Moor manages high quality environmental projects specifically for maintaining or increasing the carbon store in soils and trees. The carbon dioxide that is absorbed from the atmosphere, or prevented from being released into the atmosphere, provide carbon offsets for sale to customers.

If you purchase your carbon offsets from Forest Moor, the money goes into habitat projects in the UK, Brazil and Peru, all of which provide multiple benefits for local communities and the wider global society. While the carbon equation remains the principle focus of the projects, their strength lies in the fact that they also provide a suite of secondary benefits, which can include:

• reducing flooding and drought in water catchments;
• water purification;
• protecting and increasing wildlife;
• improving landscapes;
• providing food and other produce;
• attracting tourism and recreation revenue;
• other sustainable development opportunities.