A Multi-Scalar Examination of Law for Sustainable Ecosystems

Green, Olivia Odom; Garmestani, Ahjond S.; Hopton, Matthew E.; Heberling, Matthew T.

doi:10.3390/su6063534

Cited by 14 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…We have focused on aspects of law and institutions that directly support self-organization. However, many other aspects of law and institutions influence adaptation and selforganization, by affecting flexibility and governance authority, perhaps more indirectly: for example, common law (Ruhl 2011, Green et al 2014, property law (Doremus and Hanemann 2008), and law governing judicial decision making (e.g., Arnold and Gunderson 2013). Furthermore, legal instruments operating in different domains and at a variety of scales interact; these effects require more attention.…”

Section: Conclusion: Limitations and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We also focus on some aspects of substantive law, which deal with compliance (e.g., Arnold and Gunderson 2013), and aspects of administrative law that influence how members of the general public collaborate with traditional government (e.g., Bingham 2009Bingham , 2010, as well as self-govern (e.g., Bingham et al 2005, Shivakumar 2005). However, we do not address equally important aspects of common law (Ruhl 2011, Green et al 2014, or discuss foundational aspects of property law or litigation (Arnold and Gunderson 2013), that also influence adaptation and self-organization because these do not focus explicitly on governance scope and authority. Moreover, the design principles that we eventually discuss represent only an important subset of potential principles (Table 1).…”

Section: Centers Of Activitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[Example:] Land-use laws, giving individual farmers authority to self-organize in increasingly complex collective decision-making structures, parallel to formal government at local, state, and national levels (Sarker 2013 (Sarker 2013) and local and regional governments (Wheeler 2000) given tangible assistance from state and national authorities; Coral Reef Conservation Act, providing funding for research, restoration, and technical training for coral reef management (Green et al 2014). …”

Section: Emergence Frontiersmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Legal and institutional foundations of adaptive environmental governance

DeCaro¹,

Chaffin²,

Schlager³

et al. 2017

E&S

103

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ABSTRACT. Legal and institutional structures fundamentally shape opportunities for adaptive governance of environmental resources at multiple ecological and societal scales. Properties of adaptive governance are widely studied. However, these studies have not resulted in consolidated frameworks for legal and institutional design, limiting our ability to promote adaptation and social-ecological resilience. We develop an overarching framework that describes the current and potential role of law in enabling adaptation. We apply this framework to different social-ecological settings, centers of activity, and scales, illustrating the multidimensional and polycentric nature of water governance. Adaptation typically emerges organically among multiple centers of agency and authority in society as a relatively self-organized or autonomous process marked by innovation, social learning, and political deliberation. This self-directed and emergent process is difficult to create in an exogenous, top-down fashion. However, traditional centers of authority may establish enabling conditions for adaptation using a suite of legal, economic, and democratic tools to legitimize and facilitate self-organization, coordination, and collaboration across scales. The principles outlined here provide preliminary legal and institutional foundations for adaptive environmental governance, which may inform institutional design and guide future scholarship.

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Section: Conclusion: Limitations and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Centers Of Activitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Emergence Frontiersmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Legal and institutional foundations of adaptive environmental governance

DeCaro¹,

Chaffin²,

Schlager³

et al. 2017

E&S

103

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…that affect ecosystems at multiple scales (Fischer et al, 2006). Cross-scale interactions can be critically influenced by invasive species, and the cross-scale resilience model (Gunderson and Holling, 2002;Allen et al, 2014) provides a framework for further understanding the relationship between invasions and resilience, which in turn can lend insights to interactions between ecological scales and scales of governance (Green et al, 2014).…”

Section: Scalementioning

confidence: 99%

Biological invasions, ecological resilience and adaptive governance

Chaffin

Garmestani

Angeler

et al. 2016

Journal of Environmental Management

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a b s t r a c tIn a world of increasing interconnections in global trade as well as rapid change in climate and land cover, the accelerating introduction and spread of invasive species is a critical concern due to associated negative social and ecological impacts, both real and perceived. Much of the societal response to invasive species to date has been associated with negative economic consequences of invasions. This response has shaped a war-like approach to addressing invasions, one with an agenda of eradications and intense ecological restoration efforts towards prior or more desirable ecological regimes. This trajectory often ignores the concept of ecological resilience and associated approaches of resilience-based governance. We argue that the relationship between ecological resilience and invasive species has been understudied to the detriment of attempts to govern invasions, and that most management actions fail, primarily because they do not incorporate adaptive, learning-based approaches. Invasive species can decrease resilience by reducing the biodiversity that underpins ecological functions and processes, making ecosystems more prone to regime shifts. However, invasions do not always result in a shift to an alternative regime; invasions can also increase resilience by introducing novelty, replacing lost ecological functions or adding redundancy that strengthens already existing structures and processes in an ecosystem. This paper examines the potential impacts of species invasions on the resilience of ecosystems and suggests that resilience-based approaches can inform policy by linking the governance of biological invasions to the negotiation of tradeoffs between ecosystem services.

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“…Conversely, the system is considered sustainable if there is an ecological reserve (ef < bc or EF < BC). However, there is some question about the accuracy of identifying a system as sustainable (see [15]) because sustainability is, ultimately, a global issue (e.g., [15,16]). Thus, an assessment is conducted of the system's movement toward or away from sustainability by examining the ecological balance through time.…”

Section: Efa Overviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Calculating Puerto Rico’s Ecological Footprint (1970–2010) Using Freely Available Data

Hopton

Berland

2015

Sustainability

Self Cite

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Ecological Footprint Analysis (EFA) is appealing as a metric of sustainability because it is straightforward in theory and easy to conceptualize. However, EFA is difficult to implement because it requires extensive data. A simplified approach to EFA that requires fewer data can serve as a perfunctory analysis allowing researchers to examine a system with relatively little cost and effort. We examined whether a simplified approach using freely available data could be applied to Puerto Rico, a densely populated island with limited land resources. Forty-one years of data were assembled to compute the ecological footprint from 1970 to 2010. According to EFA, individuals in Puerto Rico were moving toward sustainability over time, as the per capita ecological footprint decreased from 3.69 ha per capita (ha/ca) in 1970 to 3

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A Multi-Scalar Examination of Law for Sustainable Ecosystems

Cited by 14 publications

References 47 publications

Legal and institutional foundations of adaptive environmental governance

Legal and institutional foundations of adaptive environmental governance

Biological invasions, ecological resilience and adaptive governance

Calculating Puerto Rico’s Ecological Footprint (1970–2010) Using Freely Available Data

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