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Full-Text Articles in Law
Restoration Rx: An Evaluation And Prescription, Alyson C. Flournoy
Restoration Rx: An Evaluation And Prescription, Alyson C. Flournoy
Alyson Flournoy
In this introductory article, I explore what ethics, science, economics, and law suggest about the value of restoration. These themes -- the questions and challenges posed by ethics, science, economics, and law -- resonate throughout the Articles in this Symposium. Drawing on the presentations given at the Symposium and the literature on environmental restoration, this article reviews some of the major questions that science and ethics pose for restoration, as well as the challenges posed by the economic and legal contexts within which environmental restoration occurs. After a brief comment on the definition of restoration, this article addresses the challenges …
Section 404 At Thirty-Something: A Program In Search Of A Policy, Alyson C. Flournoy
Section 404 At Thirty-Something: A Program In Search Of A Policy, Alyson C. Flournoy
Alyson Flournoy
This article focuses on three controversies that have dominated debate over wetlands -- jurisdiction, delineation, and the scope of activities regulated by section 404 -- and shows how the limitations inherent in section 404 have contributed to endless conflict over these issues, with little long-term benefit to policy development. This article examines why wetlands policy has failed to mature in its first thirty years.
Protecting A Natural Resource Legacy While Promoting Reslience: Can It Be Done?, Alyson C. Flournoy
Protecting A Natural Resource Legacy While Promoting Reslience: Can It Be Done?, Alyson C. Flournoy
Alyson Flournoy
Our stock of natural resources, and the values and services they provide, are diminishing steadily over time. We have dozens of laws, enacted over a period of almost forty years that express the objective of stemming this tide. Yet, the inexorable, incremental loss continues. Scholars concerned with conservation of our natural capital have long wrestled with how best to improve the laws we have in place and to supplement the framework of existing law with newer approaches. One common theme in efforts to design progressive conservation law is how to better incorporate scientific insights into our legal regimes. This effort …
Harnessing The Power Of Information To Protect Our Public Natural Resource Legacy, Alyson Flournoy, Heather Halter, Christina Storz
Harnessing The Power Of Information To Protect Our Public Natural Resource Legacy, Alyson Flournoy, Heather Halter, Christina Storz
Alyson Flournoy
In practice, our laws have proven unequal to the lofty objectives of preserving a legacy of public natural resources for our children or achieving sustainable use of these resources. There are many factors that contribute to this shortfall, but inherent inadequacies in the design of these statutes cannot be overlooked as an important determinant. Despite the statutes' broadly stated aspirations toward sustainability and protection of the interests of future generations, only a handful of these statutes include strong and enforceable mandates for sustainable resource use. Many of these statutes accord natural resource-management agencies broad discretion to balance and permit a …
Building An Environmental Ethic From The Ground Up, Alyson Flournoy
Building An Environmental Ethic From The Ground Up, Alyson Flournoy
Alyson Flournoy
Over the last twenty years there has been a remarkable theoretical flourishing in the field of environmental philosophy, with the development of biocentric ethics, animal rights theories, deep ecology, ecofeminism, modified utilitarianism, moral pluralism and theories drawing on numerous religious and cultural traditions. These theories explore the intellectual and moral causes for the environmentally destructive practices of the dominant western industrial and economic culture, and propose alternatives that might avoid these consequences. This symposium raises a worthy question: to what extent have these theories had practical impact on environmental law and policy. I come to this question as a lawyer …
In Search Of An Environmental Ethic, Alyson C. Flournoy
In Search Of An Environmental Ethic, Alyson C. Flournoy
Alyson Flournoy
A preliminary analysis of several core environmental provisions suggests that the mix of values embedded in our environmental statutes is substantially similar to the values found in the common law and non-environmental statutes. That is, the environmental statutes tend to reflect human concerns that predate any dawning of environmental awareness -- with only a modest introduction of new values or reasons for caring that are uniquely attributable to concern for the human relationship to the environment. If this is true, it seems to undermine a tenet of the public debate. It may call into question the very naming of these …