The passage discusses the relationship between human populations and ecosystems. It notes that ecosystems provide many valuable goods and services like food, water, air quality, flood control, soil stability, pollination and more. However, rapidly expanding human populations have greatly modified ecosystems to meet increased demands for some goods, especially food, water, timber, fiber and fuel. While this has benefited many through economic development, it has also degraded ecosystems' ability to provide other important services in the long run like clean water, flood regulation and biodiversity. The passage implies that some people have been negatively impacted by these ecosystem changes.