In the decades since Congress and state legislatures passed most of the nation's most significant environmental laws, our knowledge about ecosystems has increased dramatically. We know much more about the “goods and services” that ecosystems provide—more, for example, about the migratory species that sustain agriculture by functioning as pollinators, and more about how healthy ecosystems help to filter and clean our water. But our policymakers haven’t yet taken advantage of much of that new knowledge. As ecologists learn more about the complex and dynamic interactions that produce these valuable services, decisionmakers and advocates should adopt an ecosystem services approach to implementing laws that affect the environment.
Such an approach to environmental protection focuses policy and decisionmaking on restoring and maintaining the natural infrastructure and resources that the public values. It combines scientific assessment tools to understand both our dependence and impacts on ecosystems and public participation to identify the most important services. The approach sets goals for environmental protection and helps direct policymakers and natural resource managers to identify and apply the legal, regulatory, and market-based tools to achieve them.
An ecosystem services approach integrates advances in ecology with the law. It also fosters creative thinking about how to restructure laws and regulatory programs to mimic the connectedness of ecosystem functions. The approach requires performance-based evaluations to measure success or failure of management decisions, and it depends on public participation to prioritize those services that the public values most, thus ensuring long-term public support for and investment in achieving the identified goals.
Today CPR publishes Letting Nature Work in the Pacific Northwest: A Manual for Protecting Ecosystem Services Under Existing Law, a white paper that defines the approach and identifies both prerequisites and principles for implementing it. For example, policymakers and advocates should consider principles of ecological integrity, fairness, and resilience when selecting legal tools to protect ecosystem services. The paper then applies the ecosystem services approach in the context of floodplain restoration, focusing on flood hazard mitigation and the broad range of services provided by floodplains. It marks the beginning of a long-term discussion on how to adapt environmental, natural resources, and other laws to our dependence on functioning, dynamic ecosystems.
The white paper was written by CPR Member Scholars Robert W. Adler, Robert L. Glicksman, Daniel J. Rohlf and Robert R.M. Verchick, and me. An archived webinar on the publication is available here, and other project resources are available here.
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Yee Huang | April 17, 2013
In the decades since Congress and state legislatures passed most of the nation’s most significant environmental laws, our knowledge about ecosystems has increased dramatically. We know much more about the “goods and services” that ecosystems provide—more, for example, about the migratory species that sustain agriculture by functioning as pollinators, and more about how healthy ecosystems […]
Lesley McAllister | April 17, 2013
The following is reposted from the Environmental Law Prof Blog. The electric utility industry often complains that renewable energy proponents don’t pay enough attention to the intermittency of renewable resources. A common refrain is “the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow.” The industry then reminds us that, for a reliable electricity grid, supply and demand must be in […]
Robert L. Glicksman | April 16, 2013
Last week, CPR lost one its most dynamic scholars, Joe Feller, in a tragic accident. Joe was deservedly well known as a staunch and vigorous advocate on behalf of natural resource preservation, especially the public rangelands that he loved. Joe was not cut from the typical academic mold. Although he wrote frequently and with vision about subjects that […]
Matthew Freeman | April 12, 2013
This morning, CPR President Rena Steinzor will testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee about the proposed Energy Consumers Relief Act of 2013 (ECRA), yet another in a series of bills from House Republicans aimed at blocking federal regulatory agencies from fully implementing the nation’s health and safety laws — in this case such […]
Matt Shudtz | April 10, 2013
For more than a year now, food safety and worker safety advocates have been fighting a proposal out of USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service that would pull most government inspectors off poultry slaughter lines in favor of potentially un-trained company inspectors, speed up the lines, and allow companies to use additional antimicrobial chemicals to cover […]
Michael Patoka | April 9, 2013
The Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) proposal to “modernize” the poultry inspection system by replacing government inspectors with company employees, and speeding up the processing line to a staggering 175 birds per minute, has been exposed on numerous occasions as a disaster-waiting-to-happen for food and worker safety. In its zeal to save money for poultry corporations, […]
Adam Finkel | April 5, 2013
This post originally appeared on Harvard Law School’s Bill of Health and on RegBlog and is cross-posted with permisison. For many of the federal agencies that promulgate and enforce regulations to protect public health, safety, and the environment, the era of “big government” never even began. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is a prime example: the […]
Ben Somberg | April 4, 2013
Over at Climate Progress, CPR Member Scholar Lisa Heinzerling critiques Cass Sunstein’s new book, “Simpler: The Future of Government.” Rules on worker health, environmental protection, food safety, health care, consumer protection, and more all passed through Sunstein’s inbox. Some never left. … In Sunstein’s account, OIRA’s interventions also ensured “a well-functioning system of public comment” and “compliance […]
Ben Somberg | April 1, 2013
From Member Scholar Lisa Heinzerling’s new article in the Yale Journal on Regulation: With President Obama’s nomination of Gina McCarthy as the new Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), much attention has turned to her record as the EPA official in charge of air pollution programs, experience as the head of two states’ environmental […]