Liam Heneghan is a restoration ecologist, whose professional field—only forty years old, if that—is full of uncertainties. Its goal is to reverse environmental damage and restore land to a more pristine past. He explains: “Where ecosystems have been degraded because of human activity—including an overexploitation of useful species, invasion by exotic pests, erosion of soils,…
Search Results for: environmental management
Going Against the Grain
In 1973, John Baden and Richard Stroup proposed selling off the U. S. Forest Service to private owners. In an article in the Journal of Law and Economics, they argued that commercial timber would be better managed by private companies, and non-profit organizations like the Sierra Club could protect the important environmental areas.[1] That essay…
The Challenge of Private “Seasteading”
By Greg Rehmke. This is a guest post by Greg Rehmke, program director of Economic Thinking, an organization that fosters better understanding of economic principles. Natural coral and oyster reefs around the world are considered “rainforests of the oceans,” home to rich and diverse ecosystems. Shipwrecks, offshore oil platforms, and artificial reefs teem with species…
Federal Court Rules on Grizzly Bear
A federal court in San Francisco has rejected the Trump administration’s 2017 decision to delist the grizzly bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. Free market environmentalists had argued that the grizzlies in three states around Yellowstone National Park had made a substantial recovery, and control should be returned to the states.
‘BlackRock Discovers the Joy of Other People’s Money’
Ben Zycher on the hypocrisy of BlackRock’s ‘sustainability’ initiative: Blackrock—the largest asset manager in the world—has announced in the form of a public letter from its CEO Larry Fink to corporate managements that henceforth “Sustainability [will serve] as Blackrock’s New Standard for Investing.” It is unsurprising that nowhere in the various materials issued by Blackrock in support of…
A Property Rights Solution to Endangered Salmon
Writing for PERC, R. David Simpson gives an intriguing example of salmon preservation: Native American tribes in Oregon considered bidding on a dam license (to change its operations in ways that would protect salmon). The result: a productive relationship with the dam owners—a cooperative effort to protect salmon. Here is an excerpt from Simpson’s paper:…
Will the Anti-Hunters Pay for Their Pleasure?
By Wallace Kaufman This is Part III of a three-part article. Part I is here; Part II is here. The anti-hunters, of course, have yet to put significant money in play. More wildlife and wildlife habitat have been preserved and restored by hunters than by anti-hunting environmentalists. (Environmentalists tend to focus on nearly extinct species…