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4. ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
4.1 What are ecosystem services
Ecosystems can be viewed as natural capital which contributes to economic production. They
provide goods, services and attributes, collectively known as ecosystem services that
contribute to human welfare (Barbier 1994):
Goods are harvested resources, such as fish.
Services are processes that contribute to economic production or save costs, such as water
purification.
Attributes relate to the structure and organisation of biodiversity, such as beauty, rarity or
diversity, and generate less tangible values such as spiritual, educational, cultural and
recreational value.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2003) recently re-categorized the services obtained
from ecosystems as follows:
Provisioning services such as food and water;
Regulating services such as flood and disease control;
Cultural services such as spiritual, recreational, and cultural benefits; and
Supporting services, such as nutrient cycling, that maintain the conditions for life on Earth.
The first three align well with the definitions of goods, services and attributes described above,
while the fourth underlies these and need only be considered inasmuch as changes in these
affect the values of the first three (Turpie 2007).
4.2 Goods and services provided by the Uilkraals Estuary
The main types of ecosystem services that are associated with temperate South African
estuaries are listed in Error! Reference source not found.Table 8.
The goods and services provided by Uilkraals Estuary are described in more detail below.
Uilkraals Estuary Situation Assessment
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