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strands of thought in ecological science during the last thirty years. The
swork
in the 1970s, and which represents a radical departure from the world-
view of their predecessors, has been described as an ecology of chaos. 8 In
complete contrast to prior assumptions of order and predictability in
nature, Drury and Nisbet argued that they saw no evidence of a strategy
or pattern of development in the behaviour of ecosystems. 9 Rather, they
understood this to be without any determinable direction or progression
towards stability, and, instead, to be the product of a constant impetus
for change. Worster refers to their ideas and the views of theorists that
followed them as having engendered a belief that nature
rst strand of thought, which was initiated by Drury and Nisbet
'
'
is fundamen-
tally erratic, discontinuous
[and] full of seemingly
random events that elude our models of how things are supposed to
work
unpredictable
...
...
. 10
The second strand of thought views ecosystems not as indeterminate
assemblages but as complex adaptive systems whose behaviour lies
between past theoretical extremes of progression towards an optimal
equilibrium state and complete unpredictability. 11 This outlook rejects
the notion that our dif
'
culties with plotting the trajectories of natural
systems are due to their behaviour being essentially chaotic. Instead, it
regards this as a product of the multiple developmental possibilities
opened up by their complexity. 12 Complexity theory has been applied
in a variety of contexts to aid understanding of how systems comprised
of multiple components interacting at different levels operate to produce
systemic properties, and of the factors which cause systemic change or,
in cases of serious upheaval, collapse. For example, Ruhl refers to its
use in connection with the analysis of economic and social structures to
support his argument that it should also be employed in the design of
legal systems for better ecological protection. 13 I consider below two
aspects of its application for analysing the behaviour of ecosystems
that are particularly relevant for considering how law might be used to
control the effects of human activities on their functionality.
8
9
10
Ibid ., p. 283.
Ibid ., pp. 283
-
4.
Ibid ., p. 285.
11 Gaichas,
'
Ecosystem-based Fishery Management
'
, 395
-
6; S. A. Levin,
'
Ecosystems and
the Biosphere as Complex Adaptive Systems
'
(1998) 1 Ecosystems, 431
-
2.
12 Gaichas,
'
Ecosystem-based Fishery Management
'
,396;Levin,
'
Ecosystems and the
Biosphere
'
,433.
13
J. B. Ruhl,
Thinking of Environmental Law as a Complex Adaptive System: How to
Clean up the Environment by Making a Mess of Environmental Law
'
'
(1997) 34 Houston
Law Review, 933
-
1002.
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