Ecosystem Health

Description

1. Andrea Farias:

"An ecosystem is a biological community of interacting organisms, their physical environment, and the forces that act on them. Every organism, whether it's a plant, animal, microbe, or human, depends on the flows of energy within the system to survive. We live within a single ecosystem: planet earth. However, breaking down the planetary ecosystem into smaller components, such as a pond, forest, ocean, city or bioregion, can help us understand it better."

A healthy ecosystem has the ability to maintain its structure (organization) and function (vigor) over time in the face of external stress (resilience). This involves the interrelationship between organisms (biodiversity), the ability to complete essential processes (productivity), and the capability to adapt under pressure (adaptability). Maintaining ecosystem health is essential for ensuring the continued flow of energy, vital services and resources, therefore supporting the well-being of all life on Earth.

+ Organisation: Bio(cultural)diversity, the interrelationship between creatures. A diverse system generally has more adaptive capacity and is therefore more likely to cope with change.

• Vigor: what is its ability to complete essential processes, the productivity of a system.

• Resilience: to what extent can health be maintained under pressure, capability to adapt."

(https://diome.xyz/2+%F0%9F%8C%BF+Leaves/Ecosystem+Health)

2. Encyclopedia of Biodiversity (Second Edition), 2013:

"Ecosystem health is defined as “the state or condition of an ecosystem in which its dynamic attributes are expressed within the normal ranges of activity relative to its ecological state of development” (van Andel and Aronson, 2006), while ecosystem integrity is “the state or condition of an ecosystem that displays the biodiversity characteristic of the reference, such as species composition and community structure, and is fully capable of sustaining normal ecosystem functioning” (SER, 2002)."

(https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/ecosystem-health)

Discussion

How do we ensure healthy ecosystems?

Regeneration, Rewilding, Restoration:

“Restoration is, by definition, active: it is an attempt to intervene in the fate of a species or an entire ecosystem. If preservation is the desire to hold nature in time and conservation is the desire to manage nature for future human use, restoration asks us to do something more complicated: to make decisions about where and how to heal. To repair and to care. To make amends for the damage we have done, while learning from nature even as we intervene in it... Who benefits from restoration? Who is harmed? Who does the work of care, and who is cared for? Whose vision of wildness is acted on?”

(https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/06/22/1074268/rewilding-movement-books)