Dr. Lowman’s latest Nature’s Secrets column in newsobserver.com:
As a child, I never dreamed that someday I would buy a bottle of water in an airport. What commodities will be marketed next? Fresh air? Aerated soil?
Natural products obtained without monetary costs from healthy ecosystems are part of a bountiful harvest called natural capital or ecosystem services. It includes resources (air, water, fish, oil, minerals, etc) as well as living systems (coral reefs, wetlands, rain forests, etc).
An amazing feature of ecosystem services is that they function while we sleep: Streams purify water by flowing over rocky surfaces; earthworms aerate our soils without the use of fossil fuels and heavy machinery; forests produce oxygen, medicines and energy from sunlight. Even more amazing is the fact that these ecosystem services are free – but only if we leave portions of the landscape alone to function naturally.