Editorial: Ecosystem services, policy, and human well-being

Recognition is growing that ecosystems are the foundation for human health, well-being, and livelihoods, including supporting our economies. This is emphasized by the United Nations-led initiatives, initially the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) and more recently the Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES; 2012 onwards). This recognition also comes from the impacts that we are experiencing, at the local, national, and regional scales, of our fast declining and degrading natural capital, collapsing biodiversity, and the increasing effects of climate change and natural disasters (Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, 2019). Despite this, our economies continue to operate in traditional modes, exploiting natural resources to enhance income for a small fraction of humanity, applying old tools (i.e., economic frameworks, measures, policy instruments, and related programs) that fail to consider the underpinning role that natural capital plays in supporting our economies and overall human-well-being. The over-emphasis of modern economies on the production and consumption of marketed goods and services results in the overuse and destruction of the essential elements upon which our well-being depends including natural and social capital (Costanza et al., 2007, 2014; Daly, 2015). Our current measure of economic well-being, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), ignores these broader aspects of human well-being, and “GDP is dangerously inadequate as a measure of ‘quality of life”' (Costanza et al., 2014). Quality of life (all life) and planetary well-being should be the focus of our modern economies, not GDP growth at all costs.