Introduction

Human life on Earth depends on ecosystems. This is the main message conveyed by the concept of ecosystem services (ES), which has gained an ever-increasing attention in the scientific (McDonough et al. 2017) and policy debate (e.g., CBD 2011; European Commission 2006, 2010) of the last two decades. The success of the term ‘ecosystem services’ is arguably due to its encompassing all “the direct and indirect contributions of ecosystems to human wellbeing” (TEEB 2010a), thus providing a comprehensive framework to describe the multiple relationships between humans and nature.QC 20191001</p