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Full-Text Articles in Law
Adaptive Management For Ecosystem Services, J. B. Ruhl, Robin Kundis Craig
Adaptive Management For Ecosystem Services, J. B. Ruhl, Robin Kundis Craig
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
Managing the wildland-urban interface (WUI) is a widely-recognized land use problem plagued by a fractured geography of land parcels, management jurisdictions, and governance mandates and objectives. People who work in this field have suggested a variety of approaches to managing this interface, from informal governance to contracting to insurance. To date, however, none of these scholars has fully embraced the dynamism, uncertainty, and complexity of the WUI—that is, its status as a complex adaptive system. In focusing almost exclusively on the management of this interface to control wildfire, this scholarship largely ignores the fact that rampant wildfire is itself the …
General Design Principles For Resilience And Adaptive Capacity In Legal Systems--With Applications To Climate Change Adaptation, J.B. Ruhl
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
No force has put more pressure on the legal system than is likely to be exerted as climate change begins to disrupt the settled expectations of humans. Demands on the legal system will be intense and long-term, but is the law up to the task? If it is, it will at least in part be because the legal system proves to be resilient and adaptive. The question this Article explores, therefore, is how to think about designing legal instruments and institutions now with confidence they will be resilient and adaptive to looming problems as massive, variable, and long-term in scale …
Governing For Sustainable Coasts: Complexity, Climate Change, And Coastal Ecosystem Protection, J.B. Ruhl, Robin K. Craig
Governing For Sustainable Coasts: Complexity, Climate Change, And Coastal Ecosystem Protection, J.B. Ruhl, Robin K. Craig
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
The world’s coastal ecosystems are among the most complex on Earth, and they are currently being governed unsustainably, by any definition. Climate change will only add to this complexity, underscoring the necessity of finding new ways to govern for these ecosystems’ sustainable use. After reviewing the problems facing coastal ecosystems and innovations in their governance, this article argues that governance of coastal ecosystems must move to place-based adaptive management regimes that incorporate innovative and flexible regulatory mechanisms, such as market-based incentives.
Taking Adaptive Management Seriously: A Case Study Of The Endangered Species Act, J.B. Ruhl
Taking Adaptive Management Seriously: A Case Study Of The Endangered Species Act, J.B. Ruhl
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
If one compares the way in which the ESA was implemented in 1982 to the way it is today, the list of differences would far outweigh the similarities. Indeed, the ESA has been transformed so much through administrative reform toward the ecosystem management model, I have dared to suggest elsewhere that it has earned the seal of eco-pragmatism. In this Article, I explore the related question such an assertion necessarily begs-has the ESA also earned the seal of adaptive management?... Part I of the Article provides the legal and ecological background necessary to appreciate the need for ecosystem management, and …