Ecosystems sustain and fulfill human life. They provide the food, clean water, and energy that fuel our bodies, communities, and economies; they protect us from storms, support our livelihoods, and provide inspiration and identity. These six “ecosystem services” — and recent advances in modeling, mapping, and understanding them — are at the heart of this symposium. Recognizing, valuing, and explicitly working to sustain the delivery of these ecosystem services can help diverse groups of people to find common ground and allow for decision-making that incorporates the true costs and benefits of management options to the environment and society. This symposium will highlight pioneering work in many corners of the globe that is significantly influencing decisions affecting both ecosystem condition and human welfare. It will focus on the development and application of cutting-edge ecosystem service modeling and tools and their application in diverse decision contexts. Wide uptake of these tools and lessons learned will create an informed community of leaders and practitioners who will create large-scale policy changes needed for securing and improving nature's support of human well-being.