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Ecosystem health — New goals for environmental management
378 seasoned professionals alike, with an interest in ecology, environmentalism and natural resources, it makes for fascinating reading. John W. Day, Jr. Dept. of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences and Coastal Ecology Institute Louisiana State University Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA
Ecosystem Health - New Goals for Environmental Management. R. Costanza, B.G. Norton and B.D. Haskell (Editors). Island Press, Washington, DC, 1992, 269 pp., ISBN 1-55963-141-4 (cloth) US$40.00, ISBN 1-55963-140-6 (paper) US$22.00. In the aftermath of the Rio Summit, world governments are committed to drawing up national strategies for sustainable development. A central issue raised by these strategies will be the question of whether economic growth is to be embedded within the dynamics of physical and biological systems so as to maintain their integrity, or, is to remain separate from them. The concept of environmental health explored in this timely book provides one means of addressing this taxing issue. The book has its origins in an interdisciplinary workshop called to establish a working definition for environmental health, and in an international symposium on Environmental Ethics. The structure of the book reflects these twin loci: Part 1 is concerned with Philosophy and Ethics; Part 2 with Science and Policy. Given these origins and contributions from some fifteen philosophers, ecologists and economists, the editors are to be congratulated for several reasons; they have achieved a clear sense of collective purpose; the standard of debate amongst the contributors is both of a high standard and clearly expressed; and the pluralistic approach means that the critical question of whether environmental health can come to mean more than metaphor is fully explored. The strength of the book lies on the willingness of the philosophers and ecologists - less so the economists - to approach this debate with a refreshing, intellectual openness which is reflexive to the many 'villages' of thought each discipline houses. Ecologists rehearse the difficulties they encounter in providing empirical measures of environmental 'distress' for naturally dynamic ecosystems. Likewise, the philosophers explore fully the complex ethical and moral issues arising when it is admitted that an approach based on 'meaning' rather than 'science' or 'expressed prefer-
379 ences' is to be used to advance propositions about environmental health. But if, as Sagoff insists, environmental health must be addressed in a policy framework, the rhetoric, methods and theories of economists are likely to prove more influential for advancing this cause than those of ecologists and philosophers. At this point the book disappoints, for although some contributions from economists appear to suggest that economic growth and environmental health are incommensurable, there seems to be little discussion of what this admission means for the discipline of economics itself or for its conduct in society. In this latter sense therefore, the book reveals that economists have further to travel in their quest for establishing acceptable goals for environmental management than either ecologists or philosophers. Carolyn Harrison Senior Lecturer Department of Geography University College London London, UK
Death in the Marsh. Tom Harris. Island Press, Washington, DC. ISBN 1-55963-069-8 paperback, $14.95; ISBN 1-55963-070-1 hardbound, $24.95. 236 + xiv pp.
In the early 1980s, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation established an experimental engineered wetland to accommodate drainage waters from irrigated portions of the San Joaquin Valley of central California. By the late 1980s the wetland, known as the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge, had become the focal point of a devastating episode of selenium poisoning that ravaged wildlife populations in the area. The ensuing national controversy over management of the reserve and the agricultural drainage involved not only the planners, engineers and managers who misjudged the hazard, but also the scientists and investigators who overlooked the potential for a selenium-based disaster. Death in the Marsh is a chronological account of the Kesterson story and the larger issue of environmental selenium by a journalist who not only followed the story, but who also partly drove the process by conducting his own research program into the issue. Tom Harris organized his book as though it were an environmental detective story, beginning by outlining the slow discovery of the destruction
Ecosystem Health - New Goals for Environmental Management. R. Costanza, B.G. Norton and B.D. Haskell (Editors). Island Press, Washington, DC, 1992, 269 pp., ISBN 1-55963-141-4 (cloth) US$40.00, ISBN 1-55963-140-6 (paper) US$22.00. In the aftermath of the Rio Summit, world governments are committed to drawing up national strategies for sustainable development. A central issue raised by these strategies will be the question of whether economic growth is to be embedded within the dynamics of physical and biological systems so as to maintain their integrity, or, is to remain separate from them. The concept of environmental health explored in this timely book provides one means of addressing this taxing issue. The book has its origins in an interdisciplinary workshop called to establish a working definition for environmental health, and in an international symposium on Environmental Ethics. The structure of the book reflects these twin loci: Part 1 is concerned with Philosophy and Ethics; Part 2 with Science and Policy. Given these origins and contributions from some fifteen philosophers, ecologists and economists, the editors are to be congratulated for several reasons; they have achieved a clear sense of collective purpose; the standard of debate amongst the contributors is both of a high standard and clearly expressed; and the pluralistic approach means that the critical question of whether environmental health can come to mean more than metaphor is fully explored. The strength of the book lies on the willingness of the philosophers and ecologists - less so the economists - to approach this debate with a refreshing, intellectual openness which is reflexive to the many 'villages' of thought each discipline houses. Ecologists rehearse the difficulties they encounter in providing empirical measures of environmental 'distress' for naturally dynamic ecosystems. Likewise, the philosophers explore fully the complex ethical and moral issues arising when it is admitted that an approach based on 'meaning' rather than 'science' or 'expressed prefer-
379 ences' is to be used to advance propositions about environmental health. But if, as Sagoff insists, environmental health must be addressed in a policy framework, the rhetoric, methods and theories of economists are likely to prove more influential for advancing this cause than those of ecologists and philosophers. At this point the book disappoints, for although some contributions from economists appear to suggest that economic growth and environmental health are incommensurable, there seems to be little discussion of what this admission means for the discipline of economics itself or for its conduct in society. In this latter sense therefore, the book reveals that economists have further to travel in their quest for establishing acceptable goals for environmental management than either ecologists or philosophers. Carolyn Harrison Senior Lecturer Department of Geography University College London London, UK
Death in the Marsh. Tom Harris. Island Press, Washington, DC. ISBN 1-55963-069-8 paperback, $14.95; ISBN 1-55963-070-1 hardbound, $24.95. 236 + xiv pp.
In the early 1980s, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation established an experimental engineered wetland to accommodate drainage waters from irrigated portions of the San Joaquin Valley of central California. By the late 1980s the wetland, known as the Kesterson National Wildlife Refuge, had become the focal point of a devastating episode of selenium poisoning that ravaged wildlife populations in the area. The ensuing national controversy over management of the reserve and the agricultural drainage involved not only the planners, engineers and managers who misjudged the hazard, but also the scientists and investigators who overlooked the potential for a selenium-based disaster. Death in the Marsh is a chronological account of the Kesterson story and the larger issue of environmental selenium by a journalist who not only followed the story, but who also partly drove the process by conducting his own research program into the issue. Tom Harris organized his book as though it were an environmental detective story, beginning by outlining the slow discovery of the destruction