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Panarchy, Adaptive Management and Governance: Policy Options for Building Resilience
Citation:
GARMESTANI, A. AND H. CABEZAS. Panarchy, Adaptive Management and Governance: Policy Options for Building Resilience. Presented at Lecture at University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, November 04, 2008.
Impact/Purpose:
To inform the public
Description:
Environmental law plays a key role in shaping policy for sustainability. In particular, the types of legal instruments, institutions, and the response of law to the inherent variability in socio-ecological systems is critical. Environmental protection has typically involved a command and control approach that is implemented in response to specific environmental problems. Often the response is reactive, and applied to crisis situations. Ruhl contends that command-and-control approaches to environmental problems have been very successful at dealing with air and water pollution, because the regulations were able to address the “low-hanging fruit” (e.g., point-source pollution, waste disposal), problems which are fairly easy to address. The next wave of environmental problems (e.g., cross-boundary water disputes, climate change) are not so easily addressed within the current law and policy framework, because although the problems may be easily identified, the solution requires frequent recalibration of the policy used to address the environmental issue.