The concept of ecosystem services has been proposed as a valuable tool to unite human and environmental systems for increased benefits to people and nature; however, in some cases in science and practice it can be used to exclude already marginalized communities. In this paper, we first focus on Bushbuckridge, South Africa, a region where urbanization and tourism threaten to perpetuate historical social and environmental injustices. We evaluate how ecosystem services may be utilized to either reinforce or fracture the planning and development practices that emerged from segregation and economic exclusion.
Results/Conclusions
We show how consulting companies, planning institutions, tourism industries, education systems, and science continue to reinforce legacies of apartheid in the Bushbuckridge region. Alternatively, we propose interventions for creating a pluralistic framework for assessing ecosystem services. Finally, we describe the steps needed to operationalize a democratized approach to ecosystem service assessments, to enhance its utility in policy, planning, and decision-making, based on experience in an actual dynamic urbanizing landscape.