Ecosystem services and biodiversity of rubber plantations - a systematic review.
2015
Häuser, I. | Thellmann, K. | Cotter, M. | Sauerborn, J.
Humans benefit from ecosystems which provide free goods and services. The capacity of ecosystems to deliver such services is under constant stress since humans continue to alter the environment. Ecosystem service (ESS) approaches have the potential to pinpoint multiple benefits that humans derive from nature, including services without direct market value such as climate regulation, pollination and flood protection. Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes and land-use planning are two main fields of application that require reliable data about key ESSs provided by a given landscape. This review focuses on ESS studies on rubber (<i>Hevea brasiliensis</i>) cultivation and investigates whether the studies fulfil the mentioned requirements. We analysed 76 studies in respect to the regional origin, number of assessed ESSs by each study, distribution of ESSs concerning provisioning, regulating and maintenance, and cultural ESSs, and if the studies also included biodiversity. We found that there is still a huge gap between what topics scientists research (single or few ESSs that are easy to measure) and what information policymakers would need (results including multiple ESSs, ideally from different sections, which include less tangible ESSs such as cultural services). Of the analysed 76 publications only two fulfilled the requirements to inform policymakers, and even they were not truly interdisciplinary. The main challenge remains to develop interdisciplinary studies which require joint research or collaborative projects with sufficient funding to fulfil the required task.
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