Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
their protection. The
rst is that the complexity of ecosystems makes it
extremely dif
cult to predict how actions may affect their behaviour. The
second is that they may undergo changes in state that can result in the
replacement of systems that provide services of importance for human
living with other systems that do not. The third is that the resilience
of ecosystems enables them to maintain their structures and functions
when confronted with disturbances, and therefore the best means avail-
able of keeping ecosystems in states that we regard as desirable is to act
in ways that do not undermine this systemic property. However, their
complexity prevents us from establishing with precision how the inter-
action of components gives rise to resilience or of how this is eroded.
Finally, as the suf
s resilience is relative to the challenges
that it faces, it does not lend itself to the control of activities with a view
to preventing its erosion beyond a particular point. Rather, its qualitative
nature places the emphasis on building up what contributes to a system
ciency of a system
'
'
s
capacity to adapt as far as possible because we do not know how much
resilience it will require to survive future challenges that it may encounter.
The principal conclusion that follows from these considerations is
that requirements for protecting ecosystems should be observed at all
levels of decision-making. Legal approaches for controlling the negative
impacts of development currently operate primarily at the micro-level of
regulation. The potential environmental impacts of plans, programmes
and projects for the implementation of policy concerning development
types that have been governmentally endorsed are required to be assessed
so that decision-makers can balance risks of environmental harm against
the desirability of the objectives which the assessed proposal represents.
Environmental assessment does have an important role to play in identi-
fying risks of harm to systemic components which may impact on the
health of an ecosystem as a whole. However, it is not realistic, because of
the signi
cant uncertainty over how the consequences of activities may
manifest themselves at systemic levels, to prevent regime shifts by focusing
on the impacts of individual developments or plans and programmes for
sectors in isolation. Ecological protection is more likely to be advanced
through applying holistic controls to all of our activities with a view to
reducing their collective impacts on, and bolstering, systemic resilience.
Broad precautionary measures should be employed that are not reliant
on accurate prediction of the effects of activities, but which seek to reduce
risks of systemic collapse by reducing the stresses we place on the natural
world. For approaches of this nature to be made effective, legal controls are
necessary that operate at the macro-level of policy-making.
