Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
3
Ecologically oriented policy-making
3.1 Introduction
Recognitionthatitisinhumanity
s interests to support the resilience of
ecosystems brings in its wake a need to consider how the erosive effects
of its activities on this vital property might be reduced. It also raises
the question of what role law might play in alleviating risks that anthro-
pogenic stresses will trigger unwelcome changes in their states. In this
chapter, I examine how law might be used to promote a focus in the
formation of policy on maintaining ecological functionality. There has,
to date, been strong institutional resistance to the application of environ-
mental constraints on policy-making. However, if the health of ecosys-
tems is accepted as being of supervening value for human well-being, it is
essential that the processes by which fundamental decisions are made
about the direction that societies take should be oriented towards their
protection.
There are two particular dif
'
culties with deciding how activities should
be governed with a view to supporting the functioning of ecosystems.
These are the pervasive uncertainty over how their cumulative impacts
undermine this, and corresponding ignorance of the extent to which they
must be reduced to prevent changes in state from occurring. I provide an
introduction to these problems and the challenges they present for design-
ing laws for protecting ecosystems in
Section 3.1.1
. The legal framework
for policy-making presented in this chapter addresses them by employing
mechanisms to support decision-making that are not dependent on knowl-
edge of the causal effects that actions may have, and by seeking to drive
the progressive diminution of risks of ecological harm that they give rise
to. It differs signi
cantly from current uses of law that aim to temper the
environmental consequences of decisions, but without disturbing the sta-
tus quo. In contrast, the framework
s goals of promoting ecosystem health
as an objective of policy-making and establishing precaution as the default
approach in environmental decision-making are explicitly normative.
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