Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback Edited Legal Collections Data

"Preface" [2016] ELECD 552; in Bowman, Michael; Davies, Peter; Goodwin, Edward (eds), "Research Handbook on Biodiversity and Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016) xii

Book Title: Research Handbook on Biodiversity and Law

Editor(s): Bowman, Michael; Davies, Peter; Goodwin, Edward

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781781004784

Section Title: Preface

Number of pages: 2

Extract:

Preface


Given the plethora of scientific findings and official reports to have emerged in recent
years, there is no longer room for serious doubt regarding either the extremely parlous
state of the world's biological diversity or the serious threats that this situation poses to
human health, wealth and general welfare. Over and above these essentially prudential
concerns, moreover, fundamental ethical questions continue to be raised, many of
which embrace interests of other than a purely anthropocentric kind. In the light of
such considerations, and of the practical intractability of the resulting problems, it is
inevitable that the power of the law will be recruited in order to explore, and hopefully
secure, the path to their alleviation or solution. Furthermore, the very nature of the
issues involved is such that the elaboration of appropriate legal measures is likely to be
needed not only at the national, but also at the regional and global levels.
To casual observers of international affairs ­ and even, indeed, to many seasoned
international lawyers ­ it may come as something of a surprise to discover that
governments first began to turn their attention to such matters in a serious way as early
as the final quarter of the 19th century. Yet the measures ultimately adopted tended to
be narrowly focused and essentially reactive in character, as well as being rather
loosely drafted in legal terms and relatively ill-informed from an ecological perspective.
It has only been over the last four decades, and more particularly over the ...