Ecosystems Nexus Millennium Development Goals: Understanding Ecosystems, Ecosystems Goods and Services, Millennium Development Goals and Their Linkages

This Monograph work scrutinizes the significance of ecosystems to the realization of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The objective is to clarify how the different goods and services from ecosystems are crucial for the attainment of MDGs,and losses of these goods and services stand as a barriers towards the achievement of MDGs. The earth?s ecosystems provide humanity with a wide range of benefits known as ecosystems goods and services which fall into four broad categories:provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting services. These goods and services are vital to sustaining human well-beings and to future economic and social development. Healthy ecosystems and the services they provide are crucial not only for reaching the MDGs targets but also for the continued survival of human beings on the earth. MDGs aim to improve human well-being seems like "Shooting a fly with a short gun" without healthy ecosystems and sustainable uses of its goods and services. Thus, to make MDGs a reality, ecosystems has to be used sustainably and its benefits more equitably shared.