Our natural resources

The term ‘natural capital‘ is used to describe the environmental assets which have a value to our society: the world’s stock of natural resources, which includes geology, soils, air, water and all living organisms.

These assets provide people with a wide range of goods and services which underpin our economy and society – so-called ‘ecosystem services‘.

Ecosystem services take a number of forms: for example, they may be economic resources we use such as water, timber or natural foodstuffs, the role vegetation plays in removing pollutants from the atmosphere, the contribution properly managed habitat in the upper catchment of rivers makes to protecting urban areas downstream from flooding, our income from local tourism or the health benefits people gain from spending time in the fresh air.