Ecosystem Services Discussion
The study from Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) in 2007 has found that the increasing of glasshouse gases quantity (CO2, CH4, NOx, and CFC) in the atmosphere largely due to human activities has been triggering the climate change on earth. Climate change is also posing great threat to society because it is shifting the balance in ecosystem and the dynamic of its components. Industrialization and fossil fuel combustion had led to the increasing of CO2 and other glasshouse gases quantity into atmosphere, causing global warming and climate instability.
Developing countries had been marked to suffer the biggest effect from the climate pattern change. The changing effects, including temperature rise, precipitation pattern change, sea-level rise, and other climate-related disasters are also increasing the risk in the agriculture, food, and water resource. Globalization on industrial system is also causing ecosystem fragmentation and degradation on big scale, destroying the ecosystem inhabited by various indigenous plant and animal species which could lead to the sixth great extinction.
The vital role of ecosystem and biodiversity—biosphere—on sustaining life, as we all know, has not been well-managed yet. The resilience on climate change depends on its healthy ecosystem and biodiversity richness. The higher biodiversity richness in the ecosystem and ecological knowledge in a community, the stronger its bio-cultural resilience. Resilience comes from the ability to mitigate (reducing the impact) or adaptation (response from change). The factors above are affecting the capacity of a system to endure disturbance and shock. In other words, it is the ability of a system to regulate its essential functions, structure, and identity. Resilience is an absolute quality characteristic from all healthy life system. There are many services which provided by forest that could contribute in reducing system vulnerability against climate change and, as a consequence, increasing its resilience.