Introduction

Humans and their well-being are influenced by the ecosystem around them.  The ecosystem provides various services that directly and indirectly benefits them in various ways. Forests are one of the ecosystems whose impact on human well-being transcends the local community and extends to a global scale.  There are many types of forests and though they share commonalities in terms of the services that they provide, each type has features that also dictate certain services that are unique to that type.  However, this course will focus on tropical forests.  In this module, the types of ecosystem services in the context of tropical forests will be presented.

Outcomes

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

• Enumerate the types of forest ecosystem services.
• Explain the values of forest ecosystem services.
• Illustrate the various interactions of forest ecosystem services and other assets.
• Enumerate the benefits of forest ecosystem services to human well-being and livelihood in the context of tropical forests.