Ecosystem Services and Global Trade of Natural Resources

5  The Need for Global Governance of Ecosystem Services: A Human-Environment Systems Perspective on Biofuel Production

Roland W. Scholz

Introduction

The role and quality of ecosystem services changed qualitatively in the course of the biogenesis and history of humankind. To understand these changes, we introduce a distinction between five modes of societies. The transition of each of these modes has been characterized by fundamental changes in the socio-epistemic and technological capacities, particularly in food supply, energy use and the scale of trade. These changes have been accompanied by global and increasingly complex resource flows and management of ecosystem services.

After this historical perspective, we then reveal critical communalities ...