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16
GREEN ECONOMY
Challenges and
opportunities
Delineations of a green
economy
Helena Boniatti Pavese 1
In t r o d u c t io n
Over the past 50 years, human beings have been altering ecosystems at an
increasingly accelerated and intensive pace than in any other period of human
history, especially due to the increasing demand for natural resources, such as
food, water, timber, fibers and fuels 2 .
Despite the significant contribution to economic growth and to promoting
social well-being, the excessive extraction of these resources led to irreversible
losses of global biodiversity and services provided by ecosystems, many of
which are considered essential to human survival.
Wh a t a r e e n v ir o n m e n t a l s e r v i c e s?
According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report (MEA) 3 ,
environmental (or ecosystem) services are defined as “the benefits people
obtain from ecosystems”.
They can be divided into four categories:
(i) provisioning services, such as food, water and timber, etc.;
(ii) regulating services, such as those that affect climate, flooding,
diseases, water quality, among others
(iii) cultural services, related to recreational, esthetic and spiritual; and
(iv) supporting services, which include soil formation, photosynthesis and
nutrient recycling.
Also according to the report, close to 60% of these services have been
degraded or used unsustainably, including fresh water, purification of air and
water, and local and regional climate regulation 4 . These alterations increase
the probability of accelerated, abrupt and irreversible changes with significant
consequences for human well-being, and threaten the survival of many
communities, especially in developing countries, where in some cases close
to 90% of GDP is linked to nature or natural resources 5 .
Nº 8 • June 2011
1. Environmental Policy Manager at Conservation International Brazil and former Regional
Coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean at the World Conservation Monitoring
Center of the United Nations Environment Programme (WCMC/UNEP).
2. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005).
3. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005), p. V.
4. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005), p.1.
5. UNEP (2011a).