Laws of Nature

"This timely collection is written by an interdisciplinary array of law professors, who specialize in legal and policy issues surrounding ecosystem management, and scholars and practitioners in areas such as environmental policy and planning, conservation, economics, and biology, and explores why ecosystems must be valued and managed in their own right. We cannot simply hope ecosystems will benefit from legislation focused on other environmental and natural resource protections, such as those for wildlife, trees, air, and water. An ecosystem, a community of organisms together with their physical environment, viewed as a system of interacting and interdependent relationships, has its own intricate administrative issues. The Laws of Nature investigates how ecosystems function, their value to humans and wildlife, and what factors affect their survival. This analysis is coupled with cutting-edge theories and regulatory proposals from legal scholars who study ecosystem questions. In the end, a thorough and multidisciplinary understanding of the importance of ecosystems is presented"--