Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
regulatory approach when it is known that these will alter and that the
magnitude of subsequent variance is unpredictable.
57
Third, even if some indicators of resilience could be developed,
decision-making over development would also require knowledge of
the ecological impacts of proposed activities. In this regard, the non-
linearity of ecosystems makes it particularly problematic to predict how
activities and their effects on components of ecosystems will ultimately
impact on the ecosystem and on systemic properties as a whole.
58
The
extreme dif
culty with predicting how stressors from different activities
combine to undermine ecosystem functionality would also preclude a
limits-based assessment of cumulative impacts.
59
The inescapable con-
clusion is that, on this and other counts, we are far from being able to
control development by the accurate assessment of its propensity to
move ecosystems closer to failure or to trigger tipping points.
The conception of environmental capacity as something that can be
clearly de
ed is not compatible with the complexity of
ecosystems and the properties that enable them to function. At its high-
est, environmental capacity is, as with resilience, a metaphor for the
innumerable processes that contribute to ecosystem health as it is per-
ceived by us.
60
Recognition of this and of our limited understanding of
the natural world is not problematic. Rather, it provides a starting point
for the design and adoption of regulatory practices that are appropriate
for ecological protection. These, as they are founded on awareness of our
ignorance, seek to preserve what is ecologically valuable by applying a
due sense of caution in determining what activities are to be permitted
and how, if approved, they should be conducted.
There is another good reason for rejecting a capacity-based approach
to ecological protection. The implication that the natural world is ours to
exploit up to a de
ned or quanti
ned point represents a strongly instrumental evalua-
tion and one which, because it leaves the presumption in favour of
economic goods intact, would provide a
imsy defence against devel-
opmental pressures. This knife-edge approach to environmental man-
agement would also place enormous weight on measures for economic
57
S. R. Carpenter et al.,
'
From Metaphor to Measurement: Resilience of What to What?
'
(2001) 4 Ecosystems, 779.
58
See my discussion of non-linearity in Chapter 2,
Section 2.2.2
.
59
Foley et al.,
Managing for
Cumulative Impacts in Ecosystem-based Management through Ocean Zoning
'
Guiding Ecological Principles
'
, 962 and B. S. Halpern et al.,
'
'
(2008)
51 Ocean and Coastal Management,208.
60
Haughton and Counsell,
'
Regions, Spatial Strategies
'
,pp.80
-
1.
