Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
2
Scienti
c and ethical foundations
2.1
Introduction
A reappraisal of law
s role in protecting ecosystems should begin by
examining two fundamental areas for the design of laws and institutions
that seek to prevent human activities from undermining their function-
ality. The
'
c rationale for a new legislative approach.
This requires exploration of the current understanding in ecology of how
ecosystems behave, of what properties of systems are important for their
healthy functioning and of how anthropogenic disturbance affects this.
The second is the ethical platform for laws that prioritise the mainte-
nance of ecological function over other
rst is the scienti
'
'
that might be yielded
through the exploitation of natural resources for human bene
goods
t. Can a
case be made for according supervening value to ecological processes
over the pursuit of other objectives that are regarded as economically or
socially desirable? If so, what ethical precepts and principles might be
derived from this valuation, and how should they inform the develop-
ment of new legal and institutional structures?
This chapter is concerned with these foundational issues and the scien-
ti
c and ethical basis they provide for developing a system of governance
that is equipped to tackle the causes of ecological degradation. In consid-
ering them, I advance the central argument of this topic: that a paradigm
shift is required in the way that we use law to lay down a framework for
decision-making about whether human activities should be permitted,
and, if so, how they might be conducted. That is a shift from an environ-
mental perspective founded on assumptions that the world is ours to use
unless scienti
c evidence indicates that this may be disadvantageous to
us to an ecological perspective in which we see ourselves as components
of ecosystems whose operation we do not understand fully, but on whose
well-being our own is founded. The former perspective legitimates a
continued instrumental valuation of nature constrained by ill-de
ned
conceptions of what is, or is not, environmentally tolerable. The latter
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