Food, fuel, shelter, tools – these are all examples of key livelihood products that forests and farmlands provide to humans. While such ecosystem services are important for human well-being, their accessibility is modified by a set of mediating factors that determine how much and which benefits different people receive. Hence, different groups of people – although they might be surrounded by the same ecosystems – benefit differently from them, depending on complex mechanisms that either influence the stock or the flow of ecosystem services. In the context of a case study in southwestern Ethiopia, Schultner et al. (2021) explored benefit profiles of different beneficiary groups and identified reasons for unequal access to ecosystem services. To this end, they disaggregated ecosystem service recipients and scrutinized current and historical mechanisms shaping access to services.