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When Coviability Meets Ecosystem Services: The Case of Reunion Island’s Coral Reefs

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Coviability of Social and Ecological Systems: Reconnecting Mankind to the Biosphere in an Era of Global Change

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Abstract

This chapter is part of a critical debate on the concept of ecosystem service. Since the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, ecosystem services are seen as the key component of the relationship between nature (ecosystems) and human beings (sociosystems). We assume that this perspective is partly wrong. Ecosystems services are not always provided in a sustainable way. In order to bridge nature and human beings and to reach comprehensive coviability, a feedback loop is required between ecosystem and sociosystem services. The first part is dedicated to a critical presentation of ecosystem services definitions and their input to the viability of human societies. The second part focuses on the identification and the classification of ecosystem services attached to the reef environment of the Reunion Island. The third part focuses on the concept of sociosystem services whose four main types are: the ‘sanctuary of habitats’ service, the ecological engineering service, the service of ‘reduction of the anthropogenic pressure on ecosystems’, and the reduction of pollution service.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Report of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, Stockholm, June 1972.

  2. 2.

    We will define the paradigm as a way of understanding the world.

  3. 3.

    http://www.eco-socio-systems.fr/eco-socio-system.html

  4. 4.

    http://www.hypergeo.eu/spip.php?article270

  5. 5.

    The following text is particularly clear about the assumptions made by EU on ecosystem services and their monetary assessment: “Human well-being is dependent upon ‘ecosystem services’ provided by nature for free. Such services include water supply, air purification, fisheries, timber production and nutrient cycling to name a few. These are predominantly public goods with no markets and no prices, so their loss often is not detected by our current economic incentive system and can thus continue unabated. A variety of pressures resulting from population growth, changing diets, urbanization, climate change and many other factors is causing biodiversity to decline. As a result, ecosystems are continuously being degraded. The world’s poor are most at risk from the continuing loss of biodiversity, as they are the ones that are most linking it the ecosystem services that are being degraded... The TEEB study evaluates the costs of the loss of biodiversity and the associated decline in ecosystem services worldwide, and compares them with the costs of effective conservation and sustainable use. “It intends to raise awareness of the value of biodiversity and ecosystem services and to facilitate the development of cost-effective policy responses and better informed decisions”. http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/biodiversity/economics/index_en.htm

  6. 6.

    This research was carried out with a focus on the perimeter of the marine natural reserve (Lemahieu et al. 2013; Lemahieu 2015).

  7. 7.

    All actors of the civil society can be seen as beneficiaries of ecosystem services whether they are (a) users of natural resources, (b) institutional or associative actors working on management, protection and information about the reef ecosystem, (c) resident population or tourist practicing recreation activities.

  8. 8.

    Learning these sports are more socio-system services orientated than ecosystem services orientated, even if they are usually called cultural services.

  9. 9.

    The coral reefs consist of animals, the polyps, which live in symbiosis with algae, the ‘zooxanthellae’, which provides much of the carbon they need via photosynthesis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IRD - French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, UMR ESPACE-DEV, Montpellier, France

    Espérance Cillaurren & Gilbert David

Authors
  1. Espérance Cillaurren
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  2. Gilbert David
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Correspondence to Espérance Cillaurren .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. IRD – French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, UMR ESPACE-DEV, Montpellier, France

    Olivier Barrière

  2. Center for Research on Environment, Human Security and Governance (CERES), Ibn Zohr University of Agadir, Agadir, Morocco

    Mohamed Behnassi

  3. IRD – French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, UMR ESPACE-DEV, Montpellier, France

    Gilbert David

  4. IRSTEA National Research Institute of Science and Technology for Environment and Agriculture, Montpellier, France

    Vincent Douzal

  5. IRD – French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, UMR ESPACE-DEV, Montpellier, France

    Mireille Fargette

  6. University of Montpellier, UMR ESPACE-DEV, Montpellier, France

    Thérèse Libourel

  7. IRD – French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, UMR ESPACE-DEV, Montpellier, France

    Maud Loireau

  8. University of Montpellier, Montpellier, France

    Laurence Pascal

  9. The Federal University of Bahia, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil

    Catherine Prost

  10. The Federal University of Pará, Belém, Brazil

    Voyner Ravena-Cañete

  11. IRD – French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development, UMR ESPACE-DEV, Montpellier, France

    Frédérique Seyler

  12. CNRS – The French National Center for Scientific Research, Paris, France

    Serge Morand

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Cillaurren, E., David, G. (2019). When Coviability Meets Ecosystem Services: The Case of Reunion Island’s Coral Reefs. In: Barrière, O., et al. Coviability of Social and Ecological Systems: Reconnecting Mankind to the Biosphere in an Era of Global Change. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78497-7_12

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