Ecosystem Services as a Framework for Law and Policy

摘要

Law and policy have traditionally lagged behind economics and ecology as fields addressing the value and protection of ecosystem services. Environmental lawyers and policymakers need to work to close the gap in ecologist- and economist-dominated discourse on these vital services. In this Article, Ira R. Feldman and Richard J. Blaustein examine the potential intersections of ecosystem services and law and policy. They discuss how economic considerations like valuation, scale, and uncertainty might figure in the policy opportunities for ecosystem services. And they address how such considerations as taxation and payment arrangements, common-law rights, "constitutive " constitutional rights, and established international legal norms might work to protect ecosystem services.