A service that is provided by an ecosystem as an intrinsic property of its functionality (e.g. pollination, nutrient cycling, nitrogen fixation, fruit and seed dispersal). The benefits (and occasionally disbenefits) that people obtain from ecosystems. These include provisioning services such as food and water; regulating services such as flood and disease control; and cultural services such as recreation and sense of place. In the original definition of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment the concept of ecosystem goods and services is synonymous with ecosystem services.

The degree to which an ecosystem is affected, either adversely or beneficially, by climate related stimuli, including mean (average) climate characteristics, climate variability and the frequency and magnitude of extremes.

Policies and practices that are necessarily focused on recovery of a self-sustaining living system characteristic of past or least- disturbed landscapes.

An approach to maintaining or restoring the composition, structure, function and delivery of services of natural and modified ecosystems for the goal of achieving sustainability. It is based on an adaptive, collaboratively developed vision of desired future conditions that integrates ecological, socioeconomic, and institutional perspectives, applied within a geographic framework, and defined primarily by natural ecological boundaries.

The ability of an ecosystem to support and maintain ecological processes and a diverse community of organisms. It is measured as the degree to which a diverse community of native organisms is maintained, and is used as a proxy for ecological resilience, intended as the capacity of an ecosystem to adapt in the face of stressors, while maintaining the functions of interest.

Ecosystem health is a metaphor used to describe the condition of an ecosystem,by analogy with human health. Note that there is no universally accepted benchmark for a healthy ecosystem. Rather, the apparent health status of an ecosystem can vary, depending upon which metrics are employed in judging it, and which societal aspirations are driving the assessment.

A state or condition of an ecosystem that expresses attributes of biodiversity within normal ranges, relative to its ecological stage of development. Ecosystem health depends inter alia on ecosystem resilience and resistance. Note that there is no universally accepted benchmark for a healthy ecosystem. Rather, the apparent health status of an ecosystem can vary, depending upon which metrics are employed in judging it, and which societal aspirations are driving the assessment.

A state or condition of an ecosystem that expresses attributes of biodiversity within normal ranges, relative to its ecological stage of development. Ecosystem health depends inter alia on ecosystem resilience and resistance.

According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, they are included in the general definition of ecosystem services. According to other approaches, they are objects from ecosystems that people value through experience, use or consumption. The use of this term in the context of this document goes well beyond a narrow definition of goods simply as physical items that are bought and sold in markets, and includes objects that have no market price.

The flow of energy and materials through the arrangement of biotic and abiotic components of an ecosystem. It includes many processes such as biomass production, trophic transfer through plants and animals, nutrient cycling, water dynamics and heat transfer. The concept is used here in the broad sense and it can thus be taken as being synonymous with ecosystem properties or ecosystem structure and function.