Ecosystems are capital assets: When properly managed, they yield a flow of vital goods and services. Relative to other forms of capital, however, ecosystems are poorly understood, scarcely monitored, and--in many important cases--undergoing rapid degradation. The process of economic valuation could greatly improve stewardship. This potential is now being realized with innovative financial instruments and institutional arrangements.

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Coastal areas are exposed to a variety of threats due to high population densities and rapid economic development. How will this affect human welfare and our dependence on nature's capacity to provide ecosystem goods and services? This paper is original in evaluating this concern for major habitats (macroalgae, seagrasses, blue mussel beds, and unvegetated soft bottoms) in a temperate coastal setting. More than 40 categories of goods and services are classified into provisional, regulating, and cultural services. A wide variety of Swedish examples is described for each category, including accounts of economic values and the relative importance of different habitats. For example, distinguishing characteristics would be the exceptional importance of blue mussels for mitigation of eutrophication, sandy soft bottoms for recreational uses, and seagrasses and macroalgae for fisheries production and control of wave and current energy. Net changes in the provision of goods and services are evaluated for three cases of observed coastal ecosystem shifts: i) seagrass beds into unvegetated substrate; ii) unvegetated shallow soft bottoms into filamentous algal mat dominance; and iii) macroalgae into mussel beds on hard substrate. The results are discussed in a management context including accounts of biodiversity, interconnectedness of ecosystems, and potential of economic valuation.

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Conservation scientists, national governments, and international conservation groups seek to devise, and implement, governance strategies that mitigate human impact on the environment. However, few studies to date have systematically investigated the performance of different systems of governance in achieving successful conservation outcomes. Here, we use a newly-developed analytic framework to conduct analyses of a suite of case studies, linking different governance strategies to standardized scores for delivering ecosystem services, achieving sustainable use of natural resources, and conserving biodiversity, at both local and international levels. Our results: ( i ) confirm the benefits of adaptive management; and ( ii ) reveal strong associations for the role of leadership. Our work provides a critical step toward implementing empirically justified governance strategies that are capable of improving the management of human-altered environments, with benefits for both biodiversity and people.

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