Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
.
41
Even so, knowl-
edge of the potentially global scale of impacts that ecosystem failure could
have underlines the need for new approaches to governance that seek to
prevent the deterioration of those properties that enable ecosystems to
remain in states of value to biotic communities. As will be clear from the
above, these approaches will need to
'
inescapably characterized by high levels of uncertainty
'
able basis for govern-
ing activities that do not depend on prediction of their likely impacts when
deployed in particular circumstances.
nd some justi
2.2.4 Complexity, regime shifts and environmental
decision-making
Current approaches to environmental decision-making employed
throughout the developed, and much of the developing, world rely on
prediction of the effects of activities in assessing whether or not they
should be permitted and on what terms.
42
The predicted impacts on the
environment are weighed against the bene
ts that a proposal may yield.
In the debate over how development can be made sustainable, a recurring
theme is that economic bene
-
ability, tend to be given greater weight in these balancing exercises than
the often less tangible or immediate bene
ts, because of their tangibility and quanti
ts for society of environmental
protection.
43
cult to justify the prevention of harm to a species
or habitat in the monetary and hard evidence-demanding terms on which
these debates are often conducted. Proponents of a stronger approach
to sustainability argue that formal limits on economic growth, perhaps
related to the preservation of substantive elements of the environment,
must be identi
It is dif
ed and established in law to overcome this handicap both
for environmental protection in current decision-making practices and
for making development sustainable.
44
ThefeaturesofecosystemsascomplexadaptivesystemsthatIcon-
sider in this section reveal the inadequacy of decision-making processes
that rely on the prediction of environmental effects for ecological
41
R. Boardman, Governance of Earth Systems: Science and its Uses (Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2010), pp. 39
-
43; Steffen et al.,
'
Global Change
'
,pp.71
-
2.
42
R. K. Morgan,
'
Environmental Impact Assessment: the State of the Art
'
(2012) 30 Impact
Assessment and Project Appraisal,5
14;J.HolderandM.Lee,Environmental Protection,
Law and Policy, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 548
-
-
51.
43
This tendency is considered further in
Section 5.2
of
Chapter 5
.
44
Ibid
.SeealsoA.Ross,
'
Modern Interpretations of Sustainable Development
'
(2009) 36
Journal of Law and Society,32
-
54.
