Ecosystem Services and CSJ
Ecosystem services play a central role in the Climate Smart Jobs (CSJ) project. Each intervention, whether directly or indirectly, is related to natural systems that support smallholder livelihoods, market systems, and climate resilience. Our interventions, spanning agroforestry, regenerative farming, and childcare services, as well as digital tools, are designed to support income and job creation, while also aiming to reduce environmental impact and enhance nature's capacity to provide essential benefits. Below is an overview of how these interventions deliver ecosystem services to smallholder farmers in Northern Uganda (NU).
Understanding Ecosystem Services: the basics
Ecosystem services refer to the advantages that humans derive from natural environments. These services are integral in supporting rural livelihoods, fostering business initiatives, and enhancing climate resilience.
The four primary types of ecosystem services are briefly discussed below
1. Provisioning Services: These are things we get directly from nature, like fruits, cocoa beans for chocolate, coffee beans for making coffee, and wood from trees on agroforestry farms (i.e., farms that grow different types of plants together).
2. Regulating Services: These are natural processes that help keep our environment stable. For example, bees help plants grow by carrying pollen from one flower to another, which is called pollination, and help crops produce food. Shade trees keep coffee farms cool by blocking some of the sunlight. Forests also play an important role by taking in carbon dioxide (a gas that can cause global warming) and preventing soil erosion (the washing away of topsoil) when it rains.
3. Cultural Services: These are intangible benefits that contribute to well-being, culture, and identity. Examples include the protection of shea trees by women for their sacred value and traditional land practices that promote tree conservation.
4. Supporting Services: These are important jobs that nature does to help other things work well. For example, in farming, where we grow plants again and again, using compost can make the soil better over time. In special forests with many types of trees and animals, all these living things help each other. When different crops are grown together, they share nutrients and keep the soil healthy.
Ecosystem Services and their interaction with our interventions
Some CSJ interventions directly protect or depend on ecosystem services. Others don’t directly touch ecosystems but still shape behaviour, investments, or outcomes that influence land use and sustainability over time. Some examples are listed in the table below.
