This literature review will attempt to review key peer-reviewed studies appropriate for this project. Numerous studies on ES have been published. However, as the focus of this research is on mapping ESs, these will not be examined in detail and will only be referred to as deemed appropriate by the author. Biodiversity loss is one of the major global threats to the environment and leads to significant economic and well-being losses. For example, it is estimated that 3% of global GDP is lost each year due to biodiversity loss (TEEB, 2011). In 2010 this cost the European Union (EU) alone around 450 billion euros (IMF, 2011). For this reason, since the end of the 1990s, the importance of supporting natural capital and the resulting conservation benefits has grown in both developed and developing countries; which ultimately led to the influential Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) in 2005. The MA is a combined ecosystem assessment compiled by governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the private sector and over 1300 biological scientists, which assessed the state of global ecosystems and outlined a framework for determining the connections between ecosystem services and human well-being and drivers of change at different spatial and temporal scales. The MA measured twenty-four ecosystem services and found that over the past 50 years: fifteen are in massive decline, five are in a stable (but endangered) state and only four have seen improvement (MEA, 2005). It is concluded that anthropogenic activities are having a substantial and growing impact on the biodiversity of the Earth's ecosystems, reducing both their resilience and natural capital and that this degradation of the ecosystem... half of the document... and explains that the significance of ES for themselves and other stakeholders. However, participants highlighted the need for caution when using maps to communicate data and information to stakeholders. Suggesting that some stakeholders may see the map as “having an air of authority” and may be seen as rigorous, bureaucratic and a tool of administrative control, thus limiting their decision-making opportunities (Hauck et al., 2013). Maps can also have educational value, as they can streamline efforts to explain the meaning of biodiversity and ES to the non-scientific community in a more user-friendly way. This is especially true when combined with scenarios like (EXAMPLE). Cowling et al. (2008) highlights that spatially explicit representation of alternative futures allows stakeholders to visualize the benefits of a specific policy framework.