The focus of the MA is on ecosystem services (the benefits people obtain from ecosystems), how changes in ecosystem services have affected human well-being in the past, and what role these changes could play in the present as well as in the future. The MA is an assessment of responses that are available to improve ecosystem management and can thereby contribute to the various constituents of human well-being. The specific issues addressed have been defined through consultation with the MA users. Broadly, the MA applies an integrated systems’ approach to evaluate trade-offs involved in following alternate strategies and courses of action to use ecosystem services for enhancing human welfare. The overall.
