This is a guest post by Shawn Regan, vice president of research at the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC) in Bozeman, Montana. He is also the executive editor of PERC Reports. By Shawn Regan Free market environmentalism used to involve academic study showing ways that private property rights can protect the environment, often when the government…
Tag: Wildlife
The Troubled Art of Restoration Ecology
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,…
Where Are the Eco-tourists’ Dollars?
Reports from Africa confirm what I’ve written about the continuing criticality of hunting to wildlife conservation, along with the inability, unwillingness, or lack of awareness of the need for the eco-tourism industry to step up to the plate, replace hunters’ dollars, and protect wildlife. Domestic and international travel bans and internal economic shutdowns brought international…
Why Hunting Dollars Still Matter
Liberty and Ecology has posted a number of articles discussing hunting as a means of conserving wildlife. Every article acknowledges the vital role the hunting community has historically played in wildlife conservation both in the United States and internationally. Among these articles is a three-part series by Wallace Kaufman. He argues that hunting is no…
Audubon Cancels Audubon . . . Climate Change Could Increase Rice Yields . . .
Headlines: The National Audubon Society cancels John James Audubon. On the Audubon site . . . ‘Climate change could increase rice yields,’ say Japanese scientists writing in the Agronomy Journal. From the AAAS’s Eurekalert . . . Apple’s recycling policies offer both “a breath of fresh air and major obstacles” for electronics recyclers. Stewart McGrenary…
The Pandemic and Trophy Hunting
Fear that the coronavirus pandemic came from wild animals has evoked calls for greater limits on trade in wildlife. But Catherine Semcer of PERC (the Property and Environment Research Center), in a thorough discussion of the issue, says that the coronavirus did not come from legal trade in wildlife and warns against further restricting trophy…