Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Funtowicz and Ravetz, is so termed because its scope goes well beyond the puzzle-
solving nature of normal disciplinary science (Müller 2003). Postnormal science im-
plies a qualitative change in how we gain knowledge and formulate public policies.
Instead of the expert professionals paradigm that has held sway since the Progressive
Era, postnormal science holds that engaging stakeholders in the process is critical to
making better, more socially acceptable decisions, given the complexity and uncer-
tainty of issues (Frame and Brown 2008).
Ecological economics is the science and management of sustainability (Costanza
1989), where knowledge gathering should be directly linked to informing the course
of necessary actions in a normative manner. Perhaps, the most distinguished feature
of ecological economics is its transdisciplinary exploration of human-economy-
environment interaction (Venkatachalam 2007). As in the field of ecological eco-
nomics, the focus of ecological restoration is on increasing the chance of restoration
success rather than pursuing precision in scientific and technical details. For in-
stance, William Jordan III, founding editor of the journal
Ecological Restoration
and
a founding member of the Society for Ecological Restoration, argued that restoration
of nature needs to be explored as an experience and a performing art as well as a tech-
nology (Jordan 2003). Many restoration ecologists argue that restoring an ecosystem is
a value-laden statement and urge researchers and practitioners to explicitly recognize
the importance of social, economic, cultural, and political factors in defining the
goals and scope of projects (Choi 2004, 2007; Hobbs et al. 2004). In recent years, res-
toration ecologists have called for greater recognition of the transdisciplinary nature of
restoration and have acknowledged that collaboration among all stakeholders is the
current challenge for both ecological restoration and restoration ecology (Temperton
2007). In this section, we establish the need to link ecological restoration to economic
decisions for regional economies by explaining why and how ecological restoration
makes perfect economic sense if we look beyond the basic premises of neoclassical
economics. Some of the developments in ecological economics can help us improve
our institutional and organizational settings to encourage people to express their pref-
erences as citizens when collective choices and actions are necessary. We also suggest
ways to reduce the chance of decision failures due to bounded rationality when deal-
ing with a high degree of uncertainty or inherent ignorance (i.e., we do not know
what we do not know).
Why Ecological Restoration Makes Economic Sense: Investing in Natural
Capital and Resilience
Although the environment has been abstracted out of the standard view of economics,
the concept of sustainability has been recognized and incorporated into the defini-
tions and distinctions between capital and income. Capital is essentially a stock that
generates flows (income) of goods and/or services. As long as one does not deplete the
level of stock and survives on the flows yielded, wealth can be sustained. Ecological
economists apply this concept to operationalize the pursuit of sustainability and to
clarify what needs to be sustained (Daly and Farley 2004; Farley and Gaddis 2007).
