Conserving sustainable ecosystem services

Chapter 10 focuses on ecosystem services as a key concept to study the conservation of high altitude waters. Despite their limited area, these ecosystems provide important provisioning, regulating, and cultural services on both local and global scales. They are water towers for mountain and lowland populations, serve as important carbon dioxide sinks, constitute the most extensive high altitude pastoral regions worldwide, and serve as refugia for unique species and communities. The chapter argues that the sustainable use and effective conservation of these ecosystems requires developing sound indicators and scenarios of temporal environmental changes. It also requires uncovering ecosystems’ macroeconomic dimension (i.e. identifying and quantifying causal interactions among biodiversity, water use changes, and socio-economic drivers at different scales), and developing strategies combining biodiversity conservation (e.g. through the protection of umbrella species and extensive areas), livelihood protection and development, and the maintenance of cultural diversity and traditional values.