What about ecosystem services? Are they taken into account in this project?
What are ecosystem services?
Ecosystem services are defined as the goods and services provided by biodiversity, ecological processes, ecosystems and the support of human activity to improve human well-being. Ecosystem services are the contribution of ecosystems (possibly in combination with other human contributions) to human well-being. They thus represent the flows between ecosystems and human societies.
Ecosystem services are generally classified into three main categories:
Supply or production services: all the goods produced by ecosystems and used by humans. These goods may meet needs for food (vegetables and cereals, etc.), water for consumption (drinking water or water for industrial use), materials (fibres or pharmaceutical molecules, etc.), or energy (wood or draught animals, manure, etc.).
Regulating services: phenomena that regulate ecosystems that are useful to human beings. Regulation may involve regulating pollution (improving air or water quality, etc.) or limiting nuisance (noise, visual barriers, etc.), controlling extreme events such as flooding or erosion, maintaining useful ecological processes (crop pollination by insects, seed dispersal, etc.) or regulating the climate (carbon storage by ecosystems).
Cultural services: opportunities for cultural practices enabled by ecosystems. These practices, whether intellectual (scientific or educational research activities, etc.) or spiritual (the experience of living in a pleasant environment or practising a religion, etc.), can be based on the environment for everyday life or leisure (recreational activities, for example).
As part of this project...
At the start of the LIFE project, based on estimates from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment commissioned by the UN (2005), the restoration of the 450 ha of habitats should yield the following average annual monetary benefits for our society: €35,000 in terms of pollination, €45.000 in water purification, €90,000 in flood protection, €160,000 in carbon storage, €225,000 in better quality feed for livestock, and €350,000 in educational and recreational value, i.e. almost €1 million a year!