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New technology, in this case a high-powered hunting rifle in the hands of a Chukchi hunter from the village of Chukotka in Siberia, makes hunting walrus much easier, requiring more controls to ensure that the harvest is sustainable. But now the walrus hunters are facing another problem. The warming climate is changing the range of the walrus, and a traditional way of life may be threatened.

© Staffan Widstrand

Photosynthesis is the engine for the nutrient cycling that drives primary production. Here on the shores of Milanovac Lake in CroatiaÕs Plitvice National Park, plants are able to capture the rich minerals that flow through the park and form the picturesque travertine terraces thanks to the processes driven by photosynthesis.

Maurizio Biancarelli 2008/www.wild-wonders.com

While water is treated here mainly for its value as a provisioning service, it also is a regulating service of global importance. Glaciers such as this one in Svalbard, Norway store water for later release.

© Thomas D. Mangelsen

A captive wolf at the International Wolf Center near Ely, Minnesota, defends a road-killed deer carcass from the other members of its pack. The intricate cycle of predator-prey relationships ensures that nutrients keep cycling through the system as one species kills and eats another.

© Joel Sartore/joelsartore.com

A Colorado or Tsáchila Indian shaman from Santo Domingo de los Colorados in coastal Ecuador performs a cleansing ceremony by spraying a concoction of alcohol and medicinal herbs over his patient. Traditional knowledge of medicinal plants and animals, passed down over generations, has led to many of the manufactured pharmaceuticals that now stock the shelves of drugstores in industrialized countries. Ensuring that the indigenous peoples who hold this knowledge earn their fair share remains a challenge for the international community.

© Pete Oxford

Coastal wetlands, marshes, and forests provide important protection against hurricanes. The disappearance of coastal ecosystems in the Mississippi Delta meant that Hurricane Katrina brought far more destruction to Louisiana than would have been felt if the coastal marshes and other ecosystems had been protected.

© Annie Griffiths Belt

As areas of rain forest are cleared for new towns on the Amazon frontier, the micro-habitats preferred by malarial mosquitoes often increase, resulting in higher levels of this deadly disease.

© Daniel Beltra / Greenpeace

Forests provide more than just timber, with fuel wood accounting for about half of all wood consumption. Charcoal, here being produced from old-growth cerrado trees near Emas National Park in Brazil, is an important form of energy in many developing countries, but is highly destructive of native forests. Sustainable replacements in the form of solar energy, biogas, and other alternatives are urgently needed.

© Frans Lanting

A snorkeler crosses Devils Eye Spring where teh tannin rich waters of teh Santa Fe River mix with the crystal clear waters of Devils Eye Spring at Ginne Springs Florida.

© David Doubilet

New technology, in this case a high-powered hunting rifle in the hands of a Chukchi hunter from the village of Chukotka in Siberia, makes hunting walrus much easier, requiring more controls to ensure that the harvest is sustainable. But now the walrus hunters are facing another problem. The warming climate is changing the range of the walrus, and a traditional way of life may be threatened.

© Staffan Widstrand

New technology, in this case a high-powered hunting rifle in the hands of a Chukchi hunter from the village of Chukotka in Siberia, makes hunting walrus much easier, requiring more controls to ensure that the harvest is sustainable. But now the walrus hunters are facing another problem. The warming climate is changing the range of the walrus, and a traditional way of life may be threatened.

© Staffan Widstrand

New technology, in this case a high-powered hunting rifle in the hands of a Chukchi hunter from the village of Chukotka in Siberia, makes hunting walrus much easier, requiring more controls to ensure that the harvest is sustainable. But now the walrus hunters are facing another problem. The warming climate is changing the range of the walrus, and a traditional way of life may be threatened.

© Staffan Widstrand

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