Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
from an ecological perspective. I then go on, in
Section 7.1.2
, to explain the
respects in which law can be used to meet these challenges.
cit
Current levels of information concerning environmental conditions and
legal mechanisms for generating this data are regarded as inadequate for
effective environmental protection.
1
This general concern is echoed in
the literature concerning the need for new legislative approaches as the
objectives of environmental law move from addressing discrete prob-
lems and the protection of particular species and habitat types towards
the management of the individual and cumulative effects of human
activities on the functionality of ecosystems.
2
Indeed, the need for new
approaches for generating information is emphasised in this context
because of a common perception that our knowledge and understanding
of ecosystems is at low levels,
3
7.1.1 Addressing the information de
and as the characteristics of natural
systems present particular dif
culties for those seeking to collect the
information necessary to support a legal system for their protection.
The legal prescription that some commentators have advanced for
responding to the complexity, variability and unpredictability of natural
systems is to establish structures that allow for adaptive management of
them.
4
The essence of an adaptive approach is that, through requiring the
on-going monitoring and assessment of the effects of human activities, it
1
D. C. Esty,
'
EnvironmentalProtectionintheInformationAge
'
(2004) 79 New York
University Law Review,115;D.A.Farber,
'
Bringing Environmental Assessment into
the Digital Age
in J. Holder and D. McGillivray (eds) Taking Stock of Environmental
A se smen :Law,PoicyandPrac ice(Abingdon: Routledge Cavendish, 2008),
pp. 219
'
Commons Ignorance: The Failure of Environmental Law to
Produce Needed Information on Health and the Environment
-
22;W.E.Wagner,
'
'
(2004) 53 Duke Law
Journal, 1619.
2
Ruhl,
'
Environmental Law as a Complex Adaptive System
'
, 940, 954
-
8; H. Doremus,
'
Adaptive Management, the Endangered Species Act, and the Institutional Challenges of
“
New Age
”
Environmental Protection
'
(2001) 41 Washburn Law Journal,54.
3
Tarlock,
,p.579;C.S.Holling(ed.)Adaptive Environmental Assessment and
Management (London: John Wiley & Sons, 1978), p. 7.
'
Ecosystems
'
4
J. B. Ruhl,
'
Regulation by Adaptive Management
-
Is it Possible?
'
(2005) 7 Minnesota Journal
of Law, Science and Technology,21;Doremus,
'
Adaptive Management
'
, 50; Karkkainen,
'
Adaptive Management: Making
Environmental Law and Policy more Dynamic, Experimentalist and Learning
Collaborative Ecosystem Governance
'
,189;A.Iles,
'
'
(1996) 13
Environmental and Planning Law Journal, 288; W. T. Coleman,
Legal Barriers to the
Restoration of Aquatic Systems and the Utilization of Adaptive Management
'
'
(1998) 23
Vermont Law Review,177.
