Ecosystem services are processes by which the environment or nature provides us with resources that are often taken for granted. For example, how much it would cost to purify the air we breathed day in and day out? We cannot accurately estimate how much these services cost.
Another ecosystem service is farming and using the habitat for economic growth. Invasive species impede natural processes because they disrupt or destroy the process. The United States spends 137 billion dollars a year on invasive species. South Carolina has many invasive species. Feral hogs destroy farmland and residential areas. Hydrilla completely incapacitated Lake Moultrie’s hydroelectric plant for weeks and cost the state $4 million dollars in electricity production and $526,000 dollars in game fish death. The consequences are not foreseen when invasive species are introduced to an environment but it shows how delicate nature is and how much we rely on a balanced ecosystem to live.
More than the introduction of invasive species, the over use of natural resources can hinder future source stock. Forest are an important first line of defense against climate change along with oceans both of which are feeling the impacts. According to Robert Costanza and his colleagues, “[w]henever extraction rates of renewable resources exceed their regeneration rates, however, stocks decline. Eventually, the stock of trees (the forest) will no longer be able to regenerate.” When too many trees are removed, regeneration is not only impacted, carbon sequestration is also inhibited. The excess carbon lingers in the atmosphere “filtering and reflecting sunlight, heating beyond livability the habitats below.” If forests and oceans are pushed beyond the limit to where they cannot absorb carbon, humans will need to find ways of sequestering carbon to keep the planet livable for humans. This could become incredibly costly when the service is currently free to humans if only they can maintain the delicate balance between taking what is needed, sufficient, and taking too much.
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