The need to fit the pieces of a currently fragmented landscape has led the European Union and the various territorial administrations to promote green infrastructure. This type of planning could secure ecosystem services and increase the connectivity of the Natura 2000 network, while improving the coverage of species of conservation interest in the EU beyond the current protected areas.
The creation of cartography for ecosystem services represents a new tool for territorial analysis and planning. As of very recently the province of Barcelona now has a particularly extensive and detailed mapping of ecosystem services at its disposal. It is hoped that this will be extended to all of Catalonia.
Ecologists have talked and written a lot about how human activities change ecosystems or living conditions, at the local or global scales. We also claim about the need to abolish the persistent gap between human society and Nature in thinking, because humans are a part of Nature. Yet, curiously, we have not much worked in clarifying what is our role or place in ecosystems.
