3 Ecosystems and Human Wellbeing（3生态系统和人类健康）.pdfVIP

3 Ecosystems and Human Well-being EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Human well-being has several key components: the basic material needs for a good life, freedom and choice, health, good social relations, and personal se- curity. Well-being exists on a continuum with poverty, which has been defined as “pronounced deprivation in well-being.” How well-being and ill-being, or poverty, are expressed and experienced is context- and situation-dependent, reflecting local social and personal factors such as geography, ecology, age, gender, and culture. These concepts are com- plex and value-laden. Ecosystems are essential for human well-being through their provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting services. Evidence in recent decades of escalating human impacts on ecological systems worldwide raises concerns about the consequences of ecosystem changes for human well-being. Human well-being can be enhanced through sustainable human interaction with ecosystems with the support of appropriate instruments, institutions, or- ganizations, and technology. Creation of these through participation and trans- parency may contribute to people’s freedoms and choices and to increased economic, social, and ecological security. Some believe that the problems from the depletion and degradation of eco- logical capital can be largely overcome by the substitution of physical and human capital. Others believe that there are more significant limits to such substitutions. The scope for substitutions varies by socioeconomic status. We identify direct and indirect pathways between ecosystem change and hu- man well-being, whether it be positive or negative. Indirect effects are charac- terized by more complex webs of causation, involving social, economic, and political thread