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The Vermont Common Assets Trust: An institution for sustainable, just and efficient resource allocation

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Abstract

Both private and public sectors have failed to adequately provide critical ecosystem goods and services or an equitable distribution of wealth and income. To address this problem, the Vermont legislature is considering the creation of a Vermont Common Assets Trust (VCAT) that would make the state's atmosphere, aquifers and other resources created by nature or by society as a whole the common property of all Vermonters, present and future. Under the Trust, a board of trustees would have the legal obligation to manage these assets for the benefit of all Vermonters, including future generations. This paper first explains why certain resources are likely to be managed more sustainably, fairly and efficiently as common property than as private property. It then discusses mechanisms for integrating assets into the trust. Estimates of potential revenue from a VCAT suggest that it could eliminate the state budget deficit, contribute to a better distribution of wealth and resources, and help address critical ecological problems. Survey results suggest that a VCAT is politically feasible. The VCAT promises to be an important pilot project that could later be scaled up to a national or global level.

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... Equity discussions are often couched in terms of participants' expectations rather than researchers' ethics (e.g., [107]). There are practical reasons for ensuring that stakeholders perceive allocation and price-setting processes as fair and transparent [38,41,64,82] (see Sections 3.5.3 and 3.6). ...
... Auctions can be bundled with other policy interventions (e.g., for valuation or price setting as in Tanzania [81] or to generate data for environmental accounting as in [11,137]) as well as extension services [15]. Farley et al. [38] consider a cap-and-auction tool for an institution tasked with managing common pool resources: bidders compete for development rights and public bodies capture rents that can be reinvested or returned to taxpayers. The objective is proportional equivalence between benefits and costs, achieved when all users of common goods pay the same price without capturing "unearned profits" and revenue is spent on the good (pp. ...
... Forward auctions. With a few narrow exceptions (e.g., [38,40,67,141]), discussions of forward auctions in ES are rare. Developing forward formats to generate higher ES prices and engage larger numbers of stakeholders, rather than (or in combination with) reverse formats aimed at gaining landowner participation at the lowest possible price, may expand the available MBI toolset. ...
Article
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Auctions offer potential cost-effectiveness improvements over other mechanisms for payments for ecosystem services (PES) contract allocation. However, evidence-based guidance for matching design to application is scarce and research priorities are unclear. To take stock of the current state of the art, we conducted a systematic review and thematic content analysis of 56 peer-reviewed journal articles discussing ES auctions published in the last decade. Auctions were approached from three overlapping perspectives: mechanism design, PES, and policy analysis. Five major themes emerged: (1) performance, including measures like cost-effectiveness and PES criteria like additionality; (2) information dynamics like price discovery and communication effects; (3) design innovations like risk-integrating and spatially coordinated mechanisms; (4) con-textual variables like policy context and cultural values; and (5) participation factors. Additional attention from policymakers and continued efforts to coordinate research in this diverse and interdisciplinary subfield may be beneficial.
... Consequently, public ESs, which are both non-rivalrous and non-excludable, are not usually considered in the decision-making framework of private LPR holders completely, as public ESs often lack a market for monetizing or realizing their values (Chen, 2020). Therefore, individuals may not be inclined to voluntarily provide public goods at their own expense (Lant et al., 2008;Olson, 2009;Farley et al., 2015;Oza et al., 2021), although public ESs will sometimes be provided in private LPR settings as a by-product of market-based management (e.g., habitat provision in a commercially managed forest stand). In other words, payment to private landowner can motivate them to produce additional ESs. ...
... In such cases, well-informed public and common LPR owners ideally need to balance the enhancement of the ES with the maintenance of biodiversity for the collective (Costanza, 2020). Meanwhile, economically rational private LPR owners may still pursue actions to improve the ES for profit-making purposes interest (Farley et al., 2015;Oza et al., 2021). Third, generating ESs for public wellbeing might be inherently integrated into the management goals of public lands (Glück, 2002;Butler and Koontz, 2005;Costanza, 2020), which means more uncertainties in assessing the baseline ES provision on public lands than private lands. ...
Article
We conducted a qualitative literature review and provided a theoretical discussion of how private, common, and public land property rights (LPRs) uniquely influence the effectiveness of Payments for Ecosystem Service (PES). We considered three aspects of PES’s effectiveness: additionality (PES programs typically employ tests to assess whether the payment will result in additional ecosystem services), socioeconomic impacts, and transaction costs. The existing literature has not addressed differences between LPR types with respect to ensuring additionality. Particularly striking is the lack of consideration of additionality on public and common lands. Future research can assess whether private LPRs are more favorable for ensuing additionality than common and public LPRs. We found that most existing tests for additionality are for private lands, likely due to financial payment on private lands having more leverage to change land uses or technology in ways that can result in changes to ecosystem service provisions beyond baseline levels. While existing studies have shown more diverse socioeconomic impacts (e.g., on equity among community members) on common lands than on private and public lands, socioeconomic impacts between private and public lands have been insufficiently compared. Whether public LPR are associated with higher or lower transaction costs than private and common LPRs also remains unclear, although existing literature has indicated some strengths (e.g., reducing the number of PES contracts) and limitations (e.g., mistrust, contested leadership) of common lands for saving transaction costs compared to private lands. Quantitative literature reviews and more empirical evidence from real-world cases are needed to further assess the strengths and limitations of different types of LPR for enhancing PES’s effectiveness.
... These developments reflect the view that "many eco-services are best considered public goods or common pool resources, so conventional markets are often not the best institutional frameworks to manage them" (Costanza et al., 2014). This does not mean that valuation tools are irrelevant, but rather highlights the need for alternative or hybrid institutional arrangements that better account for diverse values (Costanza et al., 2014;Farley et al., 2015). For example, civil liability cases for environmental harm lever valuation data to enable restoration and to compensate the victims of environmental harm-measures that are being pioneered in Indonesia (see Jones et al., 2015). ...
... For example, civil liability cases for environmental harm lever valuation data to enable restoration and to compensate the victims of environmental harm-measures that are being pioneered in Indonesia (see Jones et al., 2015). Other institutional arrangements, such as common assets trusts, also draw on valuation data, but to inform decisions via third sector governance arrangements; these trusts manage parts of the environment as common pool resources, via a board of trustees, on behalf of the beneficiaries (e.g., Vermont Common Assets Trust, Farley et al., 2015). Such systems already exist in parts of Indonesia, including Bali's longstanding collective subak (irrigation society) management of rice paddies and their irrigation (Geertz, 1972). ...
Article
Monetary valuation of the environment is increasingly embedded in policy. Despite broad claims that valuation is policy-relevant, there is widespread frustration that it has not widely improved environmental outcomes, that it obscures many other types of values, and presents unintended consequences. We argue that this is, in part, because of a tendency to overlook the mechanics of how valuation tools and data are embedded into the institutions (regulations, norms, rules, schemes) that mediate decision-making. Discussions of how valuation engages with policy are often anecdotal and rarely systematic. This manuscript responds with a structured analysis of valuation within 7 Indonesian government institutions. By analyzing the legislative provisions that deal with valuation within each agency, we explore the challenges of institutionalizing valuation into policy. We consider the difficulties of: defining what is (and isn't) valuable, specifying methods, and identifying policy objectives. We found broad gaps and inconsistencies in the aims, definitions, methods, and treatment of non-market goods and services. We identify a need for broadened thinking about the role of valuation data within everyday environmental governance, including how it is codified and operationalized. To this end, we provide a framework of the “cascade” relationship between environmental management, ecosystem goods and services, human wellbeing, and their relationship to environmental governance, which uncovers the mechanics of how valuation can inform decision-making via different institutional arrangements. We call for a critical, yet also more pragmatic and field-based interrogation, of how and why valuation is conducted by decision-makers, in order to improve our understanding of its social and environmental implications.
... It coheres with the original justification for land value taxation, namely re-socializing collective values, but allows for a broader definition of such values. This policy also aligns with broader policy suggestions such as common asset trusts, which builds an institutional capacity to manage common goods toward collective benefit [54], and has received some recent attention in political spheres (see [55]). Finally, ELVT could provide a passive means of agglomeration incentives, in which land stewardship increases the land value and benefits of restoration among neighboring parcels, thus incentivizing their restoration and bolstering the contiguity of intact land. ...
Article
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Sprawling land development patterns have exacerbated ecological degradation, social fragmentation, and public health problems. Perverse incentives arise from the ability to privatize collectively created value in land rents and socialize ecological costs. Land value taxation (LVT) has been shown to encourage urban infill development by reducing or eliminating rent-seeking behavior in land markets. However, despite its purported benefits, this tax reform is value monistic in its definition of optimal land use and, therefore, does little to address the lack of non-market information to inform land use decisions. We propose an ecological-impact-weighted land value taxation policy (ELVT) which incorporates the ecological footprint of land use into one’s land value tax burden. We test both proposed policies (LVT and ELVT) relative to a “status quo” (SQ) property tax scheme, utilizing a conceptual spatially explicit agent-based model of land use behaviors and housing development. Our findings suggest that both tax interventions can increase the capital intensity and decrease the land intensity of housing development. Furthermore, both tax interventions can lead to a net profit loss for speculators and a decrease in the average housing unit price. The ELVT scheme is shown to significantly increase urban nature provisions and dampen the loss of ecological value across a region.
... Given the complexity of the provincial allocating carbon emission quotas in China, different principles need to be considered in the design of allocation mechanisms. Many studies have considered the fairness and efficiency principles (Farley et al., 2015;von Wright et al., 2022). Fairness is to reflect inter-regional differences and to ensure that different allocating agents have the same emission rights (Dong et al., 2018). ...
Article
The setting of China’s peaking target by 2030 for total CO2 emissions places stricter requirements on low-carbon production in each province. The allowable CO2 emissions will become a limited resource in the future which need to be allocated properly. In this paper, a multi-objective optimization method is used to realize the continuous allocation of carbon emission quota (CEQ) of each province from 2020 to 2030 under two different peaking paths by comprehensively considering three objectives of cost, efficiency, and fairness. In addition, the 30 provinces are divided into 4 groups and the distribution results were compared within and between groups. The results show that: (1) provinces with larger historical carbon emissions will be allocated more CEQ, while provinces with smaller carbon emissions will achieve peak carbon earlier, and the key to controlling total carbon emissions lies in the five provinces (Guangdong, Hebei, Henan, Jiangsu, Shandong) in Group 2; (2) the peak scenario and CEQ allocation scheme corresponding to path 2 will be more consistent with the future development requirements of China’s energy, economy and environment; (3) Multi-objective is necessary and the continuous CEQ allocation scheme will be significant for guiding provinces to arrange future annual production plan.
... Papers presented policies in several ways: as creating or exacerbating governance challenges (e.g., Gómez-Baggethun et al., 2013;Hansen et al., 2015;Jupiter et al., 2014;Magner, 2011;Neitzel et al., 2014), as legal frameworks for governing ES-CPR (e.g., Ban et al., 2015;Chand et al., 2015;Farley et al., 2015;Kitamura and Clapp, 2013), or as components of effective (ostensibly sustainable) governance (Molnar et al., 2015). ...
Article
Full-text available
Environmental governance is recognized as a key issue in many natural and social sciences. It is highly relevant for ecosystem services and common-pool resources as well. Both fields overlap yet have typically been studied separately. Therefore, this study aimed a) to examine the emerging body of literature that incorporates concepts from both fields of research and considers governance challenges, and b) to identify policy tools and recommendations presented for addressing those challenges. The analysis of thirty-nine selected peer-review papers revealed the multiplicity of interacting governance challenges with three major categories: environmental, socioeconomic , and problems of governance itself. Governance is impeded by institutional mismatches, exclusion of local actors, corruption, and perverse policies. The proposed policy recommendations most often suggest changes in institutional arrangements and increasing scientific understanding. Meeting human needs, and increasing social equity and justice were recognized broadly as integral for improving governance, yet correlations among governance problems and solutions appear elusive. These findings extend theoretical reasoning, while carrying practical implications for policy, governance and environmental stewardship. The analysis implies that policies to improve human conditions will be key for improved environmental governance, but more research is needed to learn which types of policy recommendations prove successful given diverse local contexts.
... Importantly, it has also been contributing to influence policy decision making at many local, national, and global scales. For example, at a local scale, the United States state of Vermont developed a "Common Assets Trust" which aims to sustainably use, manage, and protect State's natural assets through establishing a Trust under eight key guiding governing principles (Farley et al., 2015;Costanza et al., 2021). At a broader national scale, several European countries have conducted their National Ecosystem Assessments to date, e.g., the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, and Finland, which inform their policies to protect and sustain ES (Schröter et al., 2016). ...
Article
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Despite wider recognition of human interdependence with the rest of nature, our economies continue to fail to adequately value ecosystem services. This failure is largely attributed to the economic frameworks and related measures that focus on the production and consumption of marketed goods and services, but do not consider the other essential elements upon which our lives depend. This paper highlights how the Ecosystem Services approach can shift the focus to human wellbeing while remaining within biophysical planetary boundaries. An Ecosystem Services approach applies three fundamental principles of Ecological Economics: sustainable scale, efficient allocation, and fair distribution, which are vital for sustainable economies and societies. We provide case studies, from both a local and national scale, demonstrating how such an approach offers a holistic perspective of understanding what “development” actually means. Transforming our economies to appropriately consider planetary limits, overcome societal addictions, learn from Indigenous and local communities about ways of sustainable living, and realizing the importance of ecosystem services will contribute to developing economies that are resilient, and that enhance sustainable human wellbeing.
... Last but not least, there were two main points of divergence about the purpose of PES (Gneezy and Rustichini 2000;Bennett and Gosnell 2015;Grima et al. 2016;Yu and Xu 2016): (i) market efficiency: to internalize benefits that are externalized, thus bringing marginal costs into closer alignment with marginal benefits and increasing economic surplus (Potter and Wolf 2014;Xu et al. 2015), and (ii) ecological sustainability and just distribution: to create incentives to align individual or collective land-use decisions with the social interest in the management of natural resources (Liu et al. 2017). Current status of PES, that was, sole funding source (Vatn 2010), the lack of monitoring tools (Ouyang et al. 2016), and the "high input, low output" of resources Shi et al. 2020), emphasized the importance of efficiency (Farley et al. 2015). Systematic evaluation method of eco-compensation efficiency has not been established (Ma et al. 2018;Qu et al. 2020). ...
Article
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The reasonable strategies of payment for ecosystem services (PES) play a key role in solving the contradiction between ecological protection and economic development in coastal cities. However, at present, the payment efficiency is relatively low and the determination method of PES is lack. Therefore, in this study, the Jimo district of Qingdao city in China, a typical coastal city, was selected as study area, and the equivalent factor method and marine ecological capital assessment method were used to obtain terrestrial and marine ecosystem services value (ESV) and its tempo-spatial variations from 2010 to 2018. Moreover, the payment efficiency of the sea area and 15 towns over 8 years was measured using the Super-efficient SBM-DEA model based on undesired output. ESV presented a clear reduction over 8 years. The marine ecosystem provided the main service value, and waste treatment, water regulation, and soil formation were the top 3 main functions in the land ecosystem. Regulating services provided the highest component among all functions. The high-value areas were mainly distributed in the northeast and northwest regions and the low-value areas were in the south-central regions. The average payment efficiency of the sea area and 15 towns over 8 years shown a stable trend at a low level. On the basis of the evaluation of ESV and efficiency, a new possible payment scheme including payment order and quota was proposed. The total quota of marine ecosystem was 5.226 billion RMB (88% of the total) and of terrestrial ecosystem was 0.713 billion RMB. Tian Heng, Jin Kou, Yi Fengdian, and Ling Shan are the first 4 priority towns, with compensation amounts of 0.205, 0.083, and 0.063 billion RMB respectively, while the last 3 towns are Tong Ji, Huan Xiu, and Chao Hai accounting for 6.02% of the total. The theoretical payment total quota was 5.939 billion RMB, and which accounted for a low proportion of local GDP. The study can provide some recommendations for making the reasonable and feasible payment schemes for ecosystem services in coastal city, and it is feasible in the practice of ecological environment protection and sustainable development.
... First, it encourages cross-fertilization with environmental economics and policy, for instance in valuating natural resources and nonmarket goods through contingent valuation techniques (Carson, 2012). Second, policy can support self-initiated and self-governed collective networks, which enable citizen-driven (rather than market/state-driven) institutional arrangements to address sustainability challenges (Farley et al., 2015). Finally, policy can create and enforce regulation for CPRs to be governed as commons that emphasize cooperation over competition (Vivero-Pol, 2017). ...
Article
Common-pool resources (CPRs) are critical in sustainability transitions. They are often important means for environmental and societal innovation, and object of unsustainable extraction and governance practices. We argue why CPRs and their governance matter in transitions and point to issues for further research: (i) conceptualization of sustainability and transitions in light of common-pool resources and governance; (ii) the roles, potentials, and challenges of commoning practices, beyond the market–state dichotomy; (iii) interactions between CPRs and commons with markets/firms and the state/governments in processes of sustainability transitions. These overarching issues bring fresh perspectives to transitions literature: (i) CPRs/commons help advance the integration between ecological and socio-technical systems (ii) non-excludable resources affect entrepreneurial activity and innovation processes in the dynamics of socio-technical system; (iii) CPRs/commons add new viewpoints to the question of directionality of transitions. We conclude by advocating for building bridges with new institutional and environmental economics, and social practice theory.
... Nevertheless, an increased scarcity of goods allocated by the market could, ceteris paribus, mean higher prices and a greater opportunity for rent capture. 4 It is incumbent upon ecological economists to consider who will be in a position to capture those rents, and on whom the burden will fall (Boyce, 2016(Boyce, , 2018Farley et al., 2015;Felli, 2014;Fuss et al., 2016;Kornek et al., 2017;Segal, 2012). In the early rounds of the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme, for example, permits to emit carbon dioxide were gifted to companies on the basis of their historical emissions, meaning that the scarcity rents arising from the (weak) emissions cap were captured by many of the largest corporate polluters, whilst costs were passed onto citizens, with the poorest shouldering the largest burden (Cornerhouse, 2013;Keppler and Cruciani, 2010;Spash, 2010). ...
Article
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Ecological economists aim to transform our economic institutions so that society can flourish within planetary boundaries. The central message of this article is that private rent extraction forms a key barrier to the realisation of that goal. I define rent as an economic reward which is sustained through control of assets that cannot be quickly and widely replicated, and which exceeds proportionate compensation for the labour of the recipient. I argue that unless we close opportunities for rent extraction, and socialise unavoidable rents, our governments will be compelled to pursue output growth, regardless of its environmental consequences, in order to prevent spiralling inequality and unemployment. The positive proposition in this article is that the concept of rent can help us to identify, and build democratic support for, the institutional transformations necessary to prepare for a resource-constrained future. Measures to reduce and redistribute rentier power could be emancipatory for the poorest in society, whilst making more feasible many proposals that have been advocated already in this journal, including reduced working hours and resource caps. By contrast, if environmental protections are introduced before opportunities for private rent extraction are closed, we could see intensified rent-seeking, asset price bubbles, poverty and economic insecurity.
... However, ensuring different 'entry points' to the economy and counteracting the possibility of power monopoly would imply a key role for non-state business also in the future. Here expanding community-based ownership/cooperatives offer opportunitiese.g., Alperovitz (2005), Farley et al. (2015). I think, however, changing the logic of for-profit firms is also important. ...
Article
Ecological economists are engaged in developing foundations for a sustainable future. To further develop our ability to deliver, I propose that we expand our analyses by a) drawing more on institutional theory and b) include also political processes in our research. The present political-economic system is unable to ensure sustainable futures. The paper argues that the root of the problem lies in its institutional structures. I illustrate possible changes to these that could take societies onto a sustainable development path. Focus here is on creating institutions able to strengthen the role of the future in decision-making. Here I focus on both political and economic institutions, illustrating how a change in these could ensure sustainability. I also discuss changes in environmental regulation strategies. The analyses of different options are used to illustrate what kind of studies are needed to advance sustainability. They form the basis for specifying directions that ecological economics could take to further support a necessary societal transformation process.
... Por ello, analizan el caso exitoso implementado por la legislatura del estado estadounidense de Vermont, mediante la enmienda constitucional denominada el "fideicomiso de los bienes comunes de Vermont", el cual convierte a todos los recursos naturales del Estado en propiedad común de todos sus habitantes actuales y futuros y sujetos a un sistema de precios eco-sensibles. El experimento de política pública sugiere que los ingresos potenciales de tal normatividad podrían eliminar el déficit del presupuesto, lo que contribuiría a la mejor distribución de la riqueza y de los recursos y podría tener efectos positivos sobre los problemas ambientales de la región (Farley et al., 2015). ...
Book
Full-text available
Tendiendo puentes para una sustentabilidad integral presenta distintas críticas al modelo productivo adoptado a partir del enfoque economicista; pero también es un libro esperanzador, pues destaca la capacidad que tienen los ecosistemas para recuperarse de los efectos nocivos de la actividad humana. Ante todo los autores se proponen tender puentes a partir de contribuciones teóricas y aplicadas, producto de la reflexión colectiva y del encuentro académico, para trabajar un horizonte común a favor de la sustentabilidad. Un ámbito de su trabajo es la investigación, que aborda de manera teórica y/o sectorial las problemáticas ambientales derivadas de los sistemas de producción de mayor escala; otro, es la acción ciudadana y participativa analizada con la finalidad de tender puentes entre ciudadanía, gobierno y quienes generan nuevo conocimiento o los que recuperan y respetan sus saberes ancestrales. En síntesis, este libro conlleva la voluntad de investigadores de las ciencias biológicas y de la salud, así como de las ciencias sociales y las humanidades, de tender puentes para resolver algunos de los principales problemas ambientales que aquejan a nuestra sociedad; su esfuerzo ayuda a desarrollar una visión conjunta en materia de sustentabilidad crítica y es una convocatoria abierta a pensar nuestra relación con la Naturaleza
... Global dimension: sustainability is a global issue (Bastianoni et al., 2019), as it involves solving global scale challenges, from biodiversity loss to climate change. Indicators for sustainable economic growth should account for the effects of domestic growth in other countries (Caro et al., 2017;Rulli and D'Odorico, 2014;Coscieme et al., 2016) and the global commons (e.g. the atmosphere) (Costanza, 2017(Costanza, , 2016Farley et al., 2015). ...
Article
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) comprise an important policy achievement towards identifying shared goals for addressing global challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss. Though policy coherence for sustainable development ultimately depends on coherence among the SDGs – as progress toward one goal should not hamper progress toward others – synergies and trade-offs are emerging among the metrics (indicators) used to measure progress towards the various targets of the SDGs. In this context, the choice of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita as an indicator for SDG 8 (“Decent Work and Economic Growth”) contradicts the evidence that limitless economic growth is not possible on a planet with finite resources. Here, we highlight how pursuing unconditional GDP growth risks failing to achieve the SDGs overall. We show how, in the European Union, GDP is unrelated to other measures of economic performance such as levels of employment, and relates inversely to indicators of environmental sustainability and broader measures of wellbeing. Pursuing SDG 8 through a continuous increase in GDP will therefore hinder the achievement of environmental goals and goals on reducing inequalities. We propose guidelines for selecting alternative indicators for SDG 8 with the aim of improving coherence among all of the SDGs, as well as between the SDGs and other policy initiatives for sustainability. This will inform a better monitoring of SDG 8 and the definition of post-2030 Agendas for sustainable development.
... While we found that all of the papers use the term "sustainability" only five papers demonstrated a "well-developed" linkage (as defined above) to sustainability theory. Of these five papers, four papers focus on an aspect of natural resource management and/or environmental governance (i.e., Baumgärtner et al., 2010;Dixon and Carrie, 2016;Farley et al., 2015;Polman et al., 2016). Each of these four papers integrates concepts, and theoretical insights from the ES and CPR research fields to recognize that fostering sustainability includes appropriate institutions, community involvement, and understanding of the local ecosystem. ...
Article
Interdisciplinary research is understood to be the preferred way for scientific research to deepen understanding about environmental issues and challenges for sustainability. Two well-defined interdisciplinairy research fields, Ecosystems services (ES) and Common-pool resources (CPR), have taken different approaches that integrate the natural and social sciences to address environmental conundrums collaboratively. Several recent studies bring together insight from each, yet little is known about the breadth or directions, of the interdisciplinary conversation between the two fields of research. Moreover, the potential of this interaction to advance theory and practice relevant for sustainability is underexplored. The purpose of this study is to fill this gap by addressing three questions: 1) What are the motives for the interaction between CPR and ES fields?, 2) How are these two fields of research interacting?, and 3) How does the interaction of CPR and ES contribute to research on sustainability? We conducted a systematic map to identify, select, describe and analyse research of our interest. We mapped out motivations for researchers to bring together insights from these two lines of inquiry and examined how they are doing so.
... They also apply to traditional common access to seashores, rivers, forests for gathering and hunting, and other res communis resources. Vermont Senate Bill S.44 in 2008 also included minerals in the calculation of the value of these public trust resources [46]. ...
Article
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This paper explores the impact of mineral ownership on the resource curse as measured by the Human Development Index. We start from the basic assumption that the Earth and its minerals are common pool resources, and the sharing of benefits would improve development outcomes. Communal title to minerals exists at the international level for the deep seabed, outer space objects, and, potentially Antarctica, and at the sub-national level through communal title to land, such as traditional landowners and aboriginal tribes. A comprehensive summary of national mining title laws for 199 countries was completed in order to determine if communal ownership is recognized at the national level. The finding is that this type of ownership is non-existent at the national level. The methods include historiography, extensive compilation of national constitutions and mining laws, and linear regression analysis. Ownership titles were combined into centralized and decentralized categories, and simple regression conducted to determine correlation with the human development index (HDI) for 199 countries. Initial findings are that decentralized mineral ownership titles are statistically correlated with higher HDI outcomes.
... One solution is common investment and common use. Common asset trusts (CATs) are one institution that can assign property rights to the commons on behalf of the community, using trustees as protectors of the asset (Barnes et al., 2008;Farley et al., 2015). The CAT can charge for damages to the common asset and invest in the provision of non-rival ecosystem services and in green technologies that help provide and protect the asset. ...
Article
It has been 20 years since two seminal publications about ecosystem services came out: an edited book by Gretchen Daily and an article in Nature by a group of ecologists and economists on the value of the world's ecosystem services. Both of these have been very highly cited and kicked off an explosion of research, policy, and applications of the idea, including the establishment of this journal. This article traces the history leading up to these publications and the subsequent debates, research, institutions, policies, on-the-ground actions, and controversies they triggered. It also explores what we have learned during this period about the key issues: from definitions to classification to valuation, from integrated modelling to public participation and communication, and the evolution of institutions and governance innovation. Finally, it provides recommendations for the future. In particular, it points to the weakness of the mainstream economic approaches to valuation, growth, and development. It concludes that the substantial contributions of ecosystem services to the sustainable wellbeing of humans and the rest of nature should be at the core of the fundamental change needed in economic theory and practice if we are to achieve a societal transformation to a sustainable and desirable future.
... Сложившаяся ситуация определяет необходимость срочного решения вопросов охраны окружающей среды и экологии в целом, включая воспроизводство минерально-сырьевой базы [3,6,11]. • перспективность миоценовых отложений, на титан, циркон, а также благородные металлы -золото, платину. По сути, караган-чокракские мелкозернистые кварцевые песчаники, простирающиеся на площади более 500 км 2 , при мощности десятков метров являются поликомпонентным сырьем на титан + циркон (0,5-1%), золото (1-2 г/т), платина (1-2 г/т), а обогащенный кварцевый песок может служить сырьем для стекольной промышленности; ...
... Secondly, a significant component of EI is a public good that provides services to the broader society at local community, subnational, national or international scales. For this reason, a purely market-based approach to seeking additional resources does not make sense in the South African context, as has been found to be the case in other contexts around the world (Costanza et al., 2011, Cumming et al., 2014Farley et al., 2015). It therefore follows that opportunities for public sector resources should be sought out. ...
Article
Ecological infrastructure (EI) refers to ecosystems that deliver services to society, functioning as a nature-based equivalent of, or complement to, built infrastructure. EI is critical for socio-economic development, supporting a suite of development imperatives at local, national and international scales. This paper presents the myriad of ways that EI supports sustainable development, using South Africa and the South African National Development Plan as a case study, linking to the Sustainable Development Goals on a global level. We show the need for EI across numerous development and sustainability issues, including food security, water provision, and poverty alleviation.
... While we found that all of the papers use the term "sustainability" only five papers demonstrated a "well-developed"linkage (as defined above) to sustainability theory. Of these five papers, four papers focus on an aspect of natural resource management and/or environmental governance (i.e., Baumgärtner et al. 2010, Dixon and Carrie 2016, Farley et al. 2015, Polman et al. 2016. Each of these four papers integrates concepts, and theoretical insights from the ES and CPR research fields to recognize that fostering sustainability includes appropriate institutions, community involvement, and understanding of the local ecosystem. ...
Article
The Snows of Kilimanjaro Over 20.000 tourists are annually drawn by Kilimanjaro (5896 m a.s.l.) ice field. According to new studies, perpetual snow is retreating at such a pace that it will disappear in less than 15 years. Similar processes on ice-capped peaks from Peru to Tibet are one of the clearest signs that a global warming trend in the last 50 years may have exceeded typical climate shifts and is at least partly caused by gases released by human activities.
... • The Government and/or local institutions set up a common asset trust 'Savanna Trust' to collect levies/taxes from the developers (ES beneficiaries) and these funds could be used to pay the ES providers. Farley et al. (2015) proposed such mechanisms for managing natural assets at the state level in Vermont, US. ), Darwin, NT, intends to evaluate the multiple ES benefits from land management projects at property and regional scales. After identifying and valuing ES, the project aims to explore payment opportunities in association with the stakeholders (ESproviders and beneficiaries) that could lead to the development of relevant policy framework and setting up of PES programs in the region. ...
Article
The Ecozoic is defined as an era characterized by the mutual flourishing of humans and the rest of Nature. The field of Ecosystem Services should be dedicated to achieving this goal. However, ecosystem services (ES) are commonly defined as Nature’s benefits to people, an anthropocentric concept. Many schemes proposed to assess and value ES are market oriented, thus focused on the satisfaction of subjective individual preferences, an egocentric approach. Yet modern science accepts that all complex species, including humans, are an inseparable part of Nature, incapable of surviving without the ecosystem services Nature generates. Nature is the whole, the economy is the part; we must internalize the economy into nature, not vice versa. This article builds on evolutionary theory, anthropology and ecological economics to explain the necessity of an ecocentric approach to ecosystem services embodied in economic institutions prioritizing Nature. We must create new economic institutions focused on the health of the whole system to complement existing institutions focused on the individual (e.g. markets) and on society (e.g. the public sector and other collective institutions), with the recognition that system health also depends on the health of system components. We therefore propose redefining ecosystem services as Nature’s benefits to the biotic community of which humans are a part. The relationship of humanity to nature should be the same as that of a cell to the human body: prioritize the health of whole and take only the minimum necessary for secure sufficiency.
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This chapter accomplishes four tasks. First, we situate what we have learned so far within the context of sustainable natural resource management. The imperative of sustainability places some constraints on how and when Nature should be treated as a source of universal dividends. Second, we explore the possibility of articulating a general theory of common wealth dividends, one that can unify the insights from the domains of land, natural resources, and ecosystem services and extend them to other domains such as man-made commons. Specifically, we examine the public trust doctrine, the labor theory of property, and the concept of economic rent. Third, we look at some specific examples of man-made commons (or commons with man-made elements) as candidate sources of common wealth dividends. Finally, we review some parameters of common wealth dividend program design.
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In the 1960, oil was discovered on Alaska’s North Slope. Under the leadership of Governor Jay Hammond, Alaska established a Permanent Fund in 1976 to receive a portion of the oil revenues for purposes of investment and in 1982 began issuing dividends to every Alaska resident out of the Permanent Fund’s earnings. The “Alaska model” has inspired many imitations involving a wide range of resources. It is also recognized internationally as a template for responsible management of non-renewable resources. Placing the resource rents into a dedicated Fund serves to (a) preserve them so they can continue to benefit future generations, and (b) mitigate the “resource curse” (lax fiscal discipline, lack of accountability, corruption) that often accompanies mineral extraction when rents go directly into government coffers. Issuing dividends from investments serves to give every constituent some tangible benefit from the resource and create a political constituency to protect and preserve the Fund.
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The study of planetary justice is an emerging research field that explores questions of justice on a planetary scale, particularly in the context of the profound global environmental and systemic challenges our earth system is facing. The connection between environmental conditions, human well-being, and justice and equity has been established over the past decades through both academic research, and advocacy and campaigning. However, despite the growing attention and priority of this concept, divergences exist between what is meant by ‘justice’ by different actors in all arenas, including academia. This article uses a framework first developed by Biermann & Kalfagianni (2016, 2018) for empirically analysing what concepts of justice are present in global change research, how this has changed over time, and what patterns or contradictions can be observed. By exploring what concepts, principles and mechanisms of justice emerge from global change research, the paper supports the further development of a ‘planetary justice’ research agenda in the study of earth system governance.
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Azerbaijan is rich in metallic, nonmetallic and fossil fuel minerals. Nonmetallics and metallics are widely spread in the Lesser and Greater Caucasus, fossil fuels occur in the valleys of the South Caspian basin. Metallic minerals include ores of basic, nonferrous, alloy, noble and rare metals. Ferrous industry involves mining and processing of iron ore, iron smelting and steel making, manufacture of rolled products and ferroalloys. The largest centers of the ferrous metallurgy in Azerbaijan are Baku, Sumgait and Dashkesan. Nearby the Dashkesan iron ore field, a mining and processing integrated works is operating. It sends concentrates to an ironworks at Rustavi, Georgia. The Sumgait pipe plant manufactures rolled metal products. Azerbaijan’s ferrous industry development is greatly contributed to by the Dashsalakhlin deposit of bentonite used in steel making. Rapid advance in the nonferrous industry of the country is possible thanks to sufficient resources of copper, lead, zinc and alunite. The nonferrous metallurgy is represented by the Sumgait and Gyandzha aluminum works, Baku and Gyandzha nonferrous metal processing works, as well as the Sumgait rolled aluminum works. Considerable resources of complex ore (Cu, Pb and Zn) are concentrated in the Filizchai deposit on the south slope of the Greater Caucasus, as well as in the Nakhichevan and Mekhman deposits in the region of the Karabakh Mountain. The first-listed deposit is unique both in terms of ore resources and composition of concentrate. Alongside with basic ore-forming minerals, this ore contains tens of elements of commercial value (Ag, Au, Ni, Co, Ga, Cd, Ti, Pb), the best portion of which are recoverable using the current level technologies. At the present time, the top suppliers of the nonferrous metallurgy in Azerbaijan are the Zaglik deposit of alunite, Paragchai deposit of molybdenum and Filizchai group of deposits of polymetal sulphide ore. © 2019, "Ore and Metals" Publishing house. All rights reserved.
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This paper examines three communities that include common land in the community design. The common land provides natural habitat for recreational purposes along with privacy and a natural visual barrier. One of the three communities the commons arrangement fails after more than thirty years and the community sells most of the common land for private ownership. The other two are examples of successful commons where the community maintains the common lands and exhibits a growing commitment to the holding of common land. The paper examines why two of the three communities have success and prosper while the third fails. The findings provide insight into designs that work to maintain community common land and those that fail.
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Building a green economy confronts two critical and conflicting scale issues. To avoid environmental catastrophes, we must dramatically reduce throughput—carbon emissions alone must fall by over 80%. However, modern economies are so dependent on fossil fuels and other forms of throughput that far more modest reductions could result in economic catastrophe. New technologies can help bridge the gap between these two conflicting thresholds, but must be developed and disseminated as rapidly as possible. Current efforts to speed up technological innovation rely on strengthening intellectual property rights. However, scientists competing for property rights are unlikely to share information, slowing the advance of knowledge. Environmental catastrophes threaten public goods and are likely to have the worst impacts on the poor, providing little incentive for market investments in technologies that protect them. Patents on new technologies raise their prices for 20 years, slowing dissemination and preventing other scientists from freely improving the technology. Knowledge is expensive to produce but its value is maximized at a price of zero, and as a result is best produced through cooperation, not competition. Building a green economy requires public investment in open source knowledge, ideally funded by fees on throughput.
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We use the Business Roundtable’s challenge to the SEC’s 2010 proxy access rule as a natural experiment to measure the value of shareholder proxy access. We find that firms that would have been most vulnerable to proxy access, as measured by institutional ownership and activist institutional ownership in particular, lost value on October 4, 2010, when the SEC unexpectedly announced that it would delay implementation of the Rule in response to the Business Roundtable challenge. We also examine intra-day returns and find that the value loss occurred just after the SEC’s announcement on October 4. We find similar results on July 22, 2011, when the D.C. Circuit ruled in favor of the Business Roundtable. These findings are consistent with the view that financial markets placed a positive value on shareholder access, as implemented in the SEC’s 2010 Rule.
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CO2 enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR) offers the potential for storing significant volumes of carbon dioxide emissions while increasing domestic oil production. This presentation, based on a recently completed study for DOE/NETL, examines the domestic oil resource amenable to CO2-EOR, the size of the related market for CO2, and the benefits to the power sector from CO2 sales to the EOR industry. The study finds that, depending on future oil prices and the costs for purchasing CO2 from power plants and other industrial sources, from 39 to 48 billion barrels of oil could be economically recoverable with CO2-EOR. In addition, the size of the market for CO2 offered by the EOR industry is on the order of 7,500 million metric tons between now and 2030. With advances in CO2-EOR and storage technology, the economically recoverable oil resource would increase to 54 to 70 billion barrels.The market for CO2 from the EOR industry is examined in depth from the coal-fueled power plant industry’s standpoint. The sale of CO2 emissions captured from new coal-fueled power plants could provide significant revenue offsets to the cost of installing carbon capture technology. It is estimated these revenue offsets along with a value for carbon abatement could enable 40% (48 out of 121 GW) of the new coal-fueled power capacity expected to be built between now and 2030 to install CCS. With advances in CO2-EOR and storage technology the number of power plants with CCS could increase to 50 to 70 GWs. This would provide significant assistance toward addressing CO2 emissions from this sector, helping drive down the costs of installing CCS technology.
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Stabilizing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere at a level that will fulfill the mandate of the UN Framework Concentration on Climate Change to avoid " dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system" will require drastic departures from business as usual. Here we introduce one attractive response to this challenge that may seem visionary or idealistic today but that could well become realistic once we reach a tipping point regarding climate change that opens a window of opportunity for embracing major changes. No silver bullet exists capable of solving the complex and interdependent problems of climate change, sustainability, and economic development. A consensus is emerging, however, that solving these problems will require major changes in existing governance arrangements to eliminate or at least alleviate what the 2006 Stern Review (1) calls the "greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen" - the failure of the market to send proper signals about the real costs of using the atmosphere as a repository for greenhouse gases. This case exhibits the defining features of market failures surrounding open-access resources (2-6). Because emitters allowed to use the atmospheric commons as a repository for the wastes associated with burning fossil fuels at no cost, they have every incentive to use as much of this free factor of production as
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Environmental law has failed us all. As ecosystems collapse across the globe and the climate crisis intensifies, environmental agencies worldwide use their authority to permit the very harm that they are supposed to prevent. Growing numbers of citizens now realize they must act before it is too late. This book exposes what is wrong with environmental law and offers transformational change based on the public trust doctrine. An ancient and enduring principle, the trust doctrine asserts public property rights to crucial resources. Its core logic compels government, as trustee, to protect natural inheritance such as air and water for all humanity. Propelled by populist impulses and democratic imperatives, the public trust surfaces at epic times in history as a manifest human right. But until now it has lacked the precision necessary for citizens, government employees, legislators, and judges to fully safeguard the natural resources we rely on for survival and prosperity. The Nature's Trust approach empowers citizens worldwide to protect their inalienable ecological rights for generations to come.
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The recent appearance of W. J. Baumol's and Wallace Oates's The Theory of Environmental Policy [1975] and a survey article in the Journal of Economic Literature, "The Environment in Economics" [Fisher and Peterson 1976], may be thought of as signaling the full emergence and recognition of a subdiscipline within economics concerned with the environment. The Theory of Environmental Policy is an attempt to employ general equilibrium models in the Pigouvian tradition of external effects. It is rigorous in the current comprehension of that term, and it is reasonably exhaustive. Of course, earlier work concerned with the postwar literature on externalities [Mishan 1971], materials balance [Ayres and Kneese 1969], the problem of social costs [Coase 1960], a taxonomy for externalities [Buchanan and Stubblebine 1962], the anatomy of market failure [Bator 1958]. and market solutions to externality problems [Randall 1972]
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Robert Frank caused a national debate in 1995 when he and co-author Philip Cook described the poisonous spread of "winner-take-all" markets. Now he takes a thought-provoking look at the flip side of spreading inequality: as the super-rich set the pace, everyone else spends furiously in a competitive echo of wastefulness. Frank offers the first comprehensive and accessible summary of scientific evidence that our spending choices are not making us as happy and healthy as they could. Furthermore, he argues that human frailty is not at fault. The good news is that we can do something about it. We can make it harder for the super-rich to overspend, and capture our own competitive energy for the public good. Luxury Fever boldly offers a way to curb the excess and restore the true value of money.
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Both economists and conservationists are calling for expanded use of market-based instruments (MBIs) to address worsening environmental problems, but the lack of MBIs at the scale required to solve major global problems makes it difficult to empirically evaluate their effectiveness. This article indirectly evaluates MBIs for essential ecosystem services by examining market allocation of another essential resource that is allocated by markets and which has experienced dramatic price increases: food. In an unequal world, markets respond to price increases by reducing food allocations to the destitute and malnourished, but not for the affluent. MBIs would increase the prices of ecosystem services and the commodities whose production degrades them, forcing the impoverished to reduce consumption by more than the wealthy. Furthermore, most MBIs would be prone to speculation and price instability, be incompatible with the satisfaction of individual preferences, or would not maximize economic surplus. Most environmental problems can be characterized as prisoner's dilemmas, which are best solved through cooperation, not competition. Society must create economic institutions that promote cooperation and ensure that the burdens of reducing throughput are not borne disproportionately by the poor.
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If you listen to climate scientists — and despite the relentless campaign to discredit their work, you should — it is long past time to do something about emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. If we continue with business as usual, they say, we are facing a rise in global temperatures that will be little short of apocalyptic. And to avoid that apocalypse, we have to wean our economy from the use of fossil fuels, coal above all. But is it possible to make drastic cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions without destroying our economy? Like the debate over climate change itself, the debate over climate economics looks very different from the inside than it often does in popular media. The casual reader might have the impression that there are real doubts about whether emissions can be reduced without inflicting severe damage on the economy. In fact, once you filter out the noise generated by special-interest groups, you discover that there is widespread agreement among environmental economists that a market-based program to deal with the threat of climate change — one that limits carbon emissions by putting a price on them — can achieve large results at modest, though not trivial, cost. There is, however, much less agreement on how fast we should move, whether major conservation efforts should start almost immediately or be gradually increased over the course of many decades. In what follows, I will offer a brief survey of the economics of climate change or, more precisely, the economics of lessening climate change. I'll try to lay out the areas of broad agreement as well as those that remain in major dispute. First, though, a primer in the basic economics of environmental protection. Environmental Econ 101 If there's a single central insight in economics, it's this: There are mutual gains from transactions between consenting adults. If the going price of widgets is 10andIbuyawidget,itmustbebecausethatwidgetisworthmorethan10 and I buy a widget, it must be because that widget is worth more than 10 to me. If you sell a widget at that price, it must be because it costs you less than $10 to make it. So buying and selling in the widget market works to the benefit of both buyers and sellers. More than that, some careful analysis shows that if there is effective competition in the widget market, so that the price Reprints This copy is for your personal, noncommercial use only. You can order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers here or use the "Reprints" tool that appears next to any article. Visit www.nytreprints.com for samples and additional information. Order a reprint of this article now.
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There are several varieties of environmentalism. Here the focus is on the environmentalism of poor or indigenous populations involved in resource extraction conflicts around the world. In their struggle to preserve their own livelihoods against mining companies, hydroelectric dams, biomass extraction and land grabbing, and oil and gas exploitation, peasant and indigenous communities have been since the 1980s and 1990s the backbone of the global environmental justice movement.
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We examine the effects of variations in the international food prices on political institutions in low-income countries. Our empirical analysis exploits that the economic impact of changes in the international food prices differs across countries depending on whether countries are net food importers or exporters. We construct an international food net-export price index that captures this heterogeneity. Our panel fixed effects analysis yields that in low-income countries within-country variations in the international food net-export price index are significantly negatively related to democratic institutions. We further explore the mechanisms driving this relationship along the economic and the conflict dimensions.
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This article generalizes a set of core design principles for the efficacy of groups that was originally derived for groups attempting to manage common-pool resources (CPRs) such as irrigation systems, forests, and fisheries. The dominant way of thinking until recently was that commons situations invariably result in the tragedy of overuse, requiring either privatization (when possible) or top-down regulation. Based on a worldwide database of CPR groups, Ostrom proposed a set of principles that broadly captured the essential aspects of the institutional arrangements that succeeded, as contrasted to groups whose efforts failed. These principles can be generalized in two respects: first, by showing how they follow from foundational evolutionary principles; and second, by showing how they apply to a wider range of groups. The generality of the core design principles enables them to be used as a practical guide for improving the efficacy of many kinds of groups.
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A sharp escalation in worldwide commodity prices precipitated the global food crisis of 2007–2008, affecting the majority of the world’s poor, causing protests in developing countries and presenting policymakers with the challenge of simultaneously addressing hunger, poverty, and political instability. These food price shocks fomented violent civil responses in some countries, but not others, offering a unique opportunity to assess the factors that contributed to these disturbances. We explore this question empirically with specific reference to Africa, where “food riots” occurred in at least 14 countries. By examining the socio-economic and political conditions facing African countries, we attempt to answer why only some countries in Africa witnessed food riots in late 2007 and early 2008, while others did not. Our empirical analysis demonstrates that higher levels of poverty (as proxied by the Human Poverty Index), restricted access to and availability of food, urbanization, a coastal location, more oppressive regimes and stronger civil societies are associated with a higher likelihood of riots occurring. We also examine three country cases (Egypt, Mozambique, Niger) which represent different circumstances and responses to the food crisis, and identify specific factors that were associated with food protests in each case. Our study highlights the importance of pro-poor policies and investments and improved governance in addressing the problems facing the poor and in helping secure political stability. As the frequency and variability of natural disasters increase in response to climate change, such policies can serve to protect the poor from the debilitating consequences of the resulting shocks.
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This paper presents an initial synthesis of economic theory and methodology and of ecological theory and value to evaluate market and non‐market, short and long term, and private and social benefits of tropical moist forests. We present examples of our synthetic approach as follows: (1) A theoretical framework that incorporates ecological processes, private and public goods, and costs and benefits of tropical moist forests, and international interdependencies of ecological values; (2) A scheme that demonstrates the similarities between ecological subsidy/stress perturbation theory and economic production functions; (3) A case study that shows the interaction between the theoretical aspects of ecological perturbation concepts and economic production functions; (4) A method that provides an estimate of portion of the economic value of drugs and Pharmaceuticals produced by tropical moist forest plants; and (5) A method that imputes a value for the “free” or unpriced service of tropical forests in removing sulphur from the atmosphere. These examples show some of the methods used to determine more completely the values of tropical moist forests.
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In this classic study, the authors assess the importance of technological change and resource substitution in support of their conclusion that resource scarcity did not increase in the Unites States during the period 1870 to 1957. Originally published in 1963.
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During man’s relatively brief existence on this planet,he has relied on the bounty of its flora and fauna for his existence. He has harvested wildlife for food, clothing, shelter, medicines, beasts of burden, pets, and companionship. Over most of this period, this harvesting and exploitation had little impact on those resources. Human population was very low, and most animal and plant populations were relatively large. Animal and plant communities, populations, and species that became extinct did so from other than human causes. Only in recent centuries has man’s exploitation of wildlife begun to have a deleterious effect. This was the result of rapid population growth, more efficient means of capture and kill, and expansion into new continents, especially islands and tropical areas where many species of wildlife had evolved with small, localized populations and without contact with man or his camp followers, such as dogs, cats, and rats. Western exploration and col- onization quickly created serious problems of overharvesting and overexploitation of wildlife and led to a slow development of human-caused extinctions...
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For much of its history, environmental economics has sought to modify public policy in order to achieve efficient use and management of environmental resources. The results of this attempt, however, have been dismaying for the most part, and environment public policy continues to differ from the course of action prescribed by economic analysis. Some economists have begun to acknowledge that the reasons for this gap between economic theory and public policy may lie in environmental economics itself rather than in poor policy choices. That is the message sent in this book by Daniel Bromley, who joins S.V. Ciriacy-Wantrup, Allan Schmid, and others in a strong internal critique of the discipline and, in particular, of the property rights school' of Coase, Demsetz, and other advocates of the market. Property rights are the common thread of this critique, which blames much of the failure of environmental economics to influence environmental policy on several fundamental misconceptions regarding property.