Executive Summary Ecosystems provide services that, if not vital to human existence, at least contribute to our welfare. Often these ‘ecosystem services’ are taken for granted and not made explicit in standard economic accounts and, are therefore, frequently ignored in public policy decision-making. This report aims to give some ‘visibility’ to the importance of services provided by ecosystems inside the rohe of Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga by quantifying their value. This then allows the value of ecosystem services to potentially be compared with standard economic yardsticks such as the GDP of the economy in Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga. What are Ecosystem Services? The landscape inside the rohe of Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga consists of a number of ecosystem types that provide value to humans. The rohe encloses a total area of 494,339 ha (Golubiewski, 2012). For the purposes of this study we have used the following ecosystem categories: agriculture (334,341 ha), horticulture (10,958 ha), intermediate agriculture-scrub (2,671 ha), intermediate agriculture-forest (33,332 ha), forest (71,999 ha), scrub (7,690 ha), forest-scrub (15,735 ha), lakes (781 ha), rivers (2,493 ha), swamps-floodplains (3,188 ha), and estuaries (46 ha). As this report is part of a broader project that focuses on land-based as opposed to marine ecosystems within the rohe of Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga, only land-based ecosystems are considered. Ongoing research, entitled “Manaaki Taha Moana”, examines coastal-marine ecosystem services (see: www.mtm.ac.nz). All these ecosystems deliver ecosystem services that are either directly or indirectly important in terms of human welfare. For example, forest ecosystems provide timber, which is considered to have a direct value. Forests provide other ecosystem services that are important to humans, including several indirect services, for instance, climate control (primarily through carbon sequestration). They also provide erosion control (as soil is held together by the trees’ root structures), water regulation (by moderating runoff and flood events), recreation opportunities, a habitat for species, and so forth. With the exception of timber provision, while none of these ecosystem services are accounted for in standard economic accounts, they are nevertheless important in terms of their contribution to human welfare. The ecological services covered in this analysis include: gas regulation, climate regulation, disturbance regulation, water regulation, water supply, erosion control and sediment retention, soil formation, nutrient cycling, waste treatment, pollination, biological control, refugia, food production, raw materials, genetic resources, recreation, and cultural services. Use Value of Ecosystem Services The total use value (direct plus indirect) of ecosystem services from land inside the rohe of Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga is estimated to be $967.6 million. Indirect value is the larger value, at $647.8 million, compared with direct value, at $319.7 million. Most of the value of biodiversity is not included in the system of national accounts (SNAs). Although the majority of food production and raw materials ecosystem services are accounted for in SNAs, as well as a proportion of water regulation services, these only account for an estimated $246.8 million of the total $967.6
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