A critical interrogation of the relation between the ecosystem approach and ecosystem services

• Author: Vito De Lucia
• Published date: 01 July 2018
• Date: 01 July 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/reel.12227

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

A critical interrogation of the relation between the ecosystem

approach and ecosystem services

Vito De Lucia

Correspondence

Email: vito.delucia@uit.no This article offers a critical interrogation of the relationship between two emerging

conceptual frameworks whose importance has grown quickly within the context of

international environmental law: the ecosystem approach and ecosystem services.

Both premised on the concept of the ecosystem, their origin is parallel, but their

present and future is convergent and increasingly intertwined. The ecosystem

approach, increasingly deployed in a variety of normative and regulatory contexts,

has become a key strategy for the integrated management of human activities, and

has been characterized as a paradigm shift in environmental law and governance.

Ecosystem services, mainstreamed by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment series

in the early 2000s, refer to the benefits people obtain from ecosystems. The rela-

tionship between the two concepts is arguably underexplored. This article aims at

filling this gap from a particular critical legal perspective, and will read this relation-

ship in terms of a ‘biopolitical entanglement’.

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INTRODUCTION

This article offers a critical interrogation of the relationship between

two emerging conceptual frameworks whose importance has grown

quickly within the context of international environmental law: the

ecosystem approach and ecosystem services. Both premised on the

concept of the ecosystem, their origin is common, their development

–albeit occurring within different disciplinary contexts –contiguous,

and their present and future increasingly convergent and inter-

twined. Importantly, both have gained a prominent role in current

global environmental legal discourse and practice. The ecosystem

approach, increasingly deployed in a variety of normative and regula-

tory contexts (biodiversity protection, water and ocean management,

fisheries management, climate change adaptation, etc.) has become a

key strategy for the integrated management of human activities,

despite the complexities and contestations that surround the con-

cept. Its novelty lies in its incorporation of a series of key ecological

principles into legal, policy and governance regimes, and has been

characterized as a paradigm shift in environmental law and govern-

ance. The framework of ecosystem services, in turn, mainstreamed

by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) report series in the

early 2000s, refers to the benefits people obtain from ecosystems.

The relation between the two conceptual frameworks is arguably

underexplored.

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This article aims at filling this gap from a particular

critical legal theoretical perspective.

This article is structured as follows. First, it will briefly outline

each of the two concepts, the ecosystem approach and ecosystem

services. After outlining the relation at the broad conceptual level,

the article will review how the relationship is described in some

international scholarly literature, in international legal regimes and

by some institutional actors. Based on the latter part of

the review, which indicates an increasing convergence between the

two conceptual frameworks, the article will offer a reading of the

relationship which will be described in terms of biopolitical

entanglement.

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©2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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See, e.g., D Diz, E Morgera and M Wilson, ‘The Unrealised Potential of Ecosystem Ser-

vices: Some Reflections Concerning (Marine) Ecosystem Services, the Ecosystem Approach

and Benefit-Sharing’(BENELEX Project Blog, 5 April 2016) <http://www.benelexblog.la

w.ed.ac.uk/2016/04/05/the-unrealised-potential-of-ecosystem-services-some-reflections-

concerning-marine-ecosystem-services-the-ecosystem-approach-and-benefit-sharing/>. Diz,

Morgera and Wilson, however, are one exception, in that they are part of the ‘Marine

Benefits’research project, one of whose aims is to explore whether and how it is possible

to integrate the ecosystem approach and the concept of marine ecosystem services through

the legal tool of fair and equitable benefit-sharing. See <https://www.strath.ac.uk/research/

strathclydecentreenvironmentallawgovernance/marinebenefits/abouttheproject>.

DOI: 10.1111/reel.12227

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wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/reel RECIEL. 2018;27:104–114.