Informing ecological governance - Ecological Governance - page 225

involvement with their management, provide a stream of information on
the condition of ecosystems and the array of economic and social drivers of
anthropogenic stresses on them at regional and local levels.
I envisage that a centralised institution for data collection and analysis
would process that information and use it to advise on whether policies
and measures for their implementation should be modi

ed in light of
changes in systemic conditions. Such a body would have the advantage
over regional and local units of being able to apply its expertise and wider
experience with a variety of different systems to spot harms that indi-

viduals cannot see, recognize trends that might not be visible at a
decentralized level, and make judgements about which interventions
are most effective

'

. 26 A broader perspective than that which can be
provided at local or regional levels is also important for assessing inter-
action between, and effects of, activities conducted in one ecosystem on
others, and to keep under review natural processes that operate on a
broader scale than individual management units. 27
Karkkainen argues that, through working together, these different
entities would be better placed to tackle the complexities of ecosystem
management and

'

to avoid the pitfalls of relying on an excessively
narrow information base

'

. 28 The concept of democratic experimentalism
that he and others advance as a means of improving environmental
regulation through decentralising core responsibilities to local institu-
tions is based on an ideal of localities working with a centralised agency
for monitoring and assessing information. This would be done with a
view to generating a rich and continuous

'

ow of information passing

. 29

' from localities to the center and back again '

7.3 Using law to maintain the ow of information

There are two ways in which law might be used to stimulate the pro-
duction of ecological information in addition to ensuring that the insti-
tutional structures for its generation are in place, and through the

26 Esty,

,144
27 J.B.Ruh ,S.E.Kraft,andC.L.Lant,The Law and Policy of Ecosystem Services
(Washington, DC: Island Press, 2007), p. 51.
28 Karkkainen,

' Environmental Protection in the Information Age '

' Collaborative Ecosystem Governance ' , 224.

29 B.C.Karkkainen,A.FungandC.F.Sabel,

After Backyard Environmentalism: Toward
a Performance-Based Regime of Environmental Regulation

'

' (2000) 44 American

Behavioral Scientist, 693.