Investing in ecosystems

Biodiversity is the sum of all the patterns of life that nature creates in biomass

- BY Dr. RANIL SENANAYAKE

An ecosystem is defined as a geographic area where biotic (living) organisms—plants, animals, microorganisms interact with each other and with the abiotic (non-living) components like air, water, sunlight, and soil, creating a self-sustaining unit of life.

A pond with its attendant diversity is the ecosystem that supports pondlife, from frogs to fish or dragonflies, while an ocean is an ecosystem that supports fish to whales. So, it will be seen that ecosystems and their components change with scale. This creates a challenge for investment, what is the scale chosen for investment in the ecosystem?

In terms of biodiversity, ecosystems represent an evolutionary process over geological time, to sustain life through climate extremes. Over the span of existence, life forms and consequently their ecosystems have developed to be responsive to changes and represent the most successful combination of species in that environment.

On a geographic scale they manifest today as tropical rainforest or as temperate peatland or Andean paramo, each displaying a unique biodiversity complex that enables sustainability of that ecosystem in that place. These patterns suggest that the form and function of any resident ecosystem can provide a guide for designing restoration programmes and activities in that environment.