The promise of the ecosystem services concept for planning and decision-making

Spatial planning is often affected by conflicting sectoral interests. Frequently, this results in unsustainable management practices. Integrating the concept of ecosystem services into planning and decision-making can facilitate communica tion among decision-makers from sectors like landscape and urban planning, agriculture or water management. The concept accounts for a broad spectrum of quantitative and qualitative data from local to international level, thus revealing the benefits humans derive from ecosystem goods and functions.We propose that the concept of ecosystem services can complement existing policy instruments that focus solely on a specific task or sectoral interest.