PARENT SESSION
OOS 3: Valuation of Ecological Resources: Integration of Ecology and Socio-economics to Inform Environmental Decisions.
Organized by: LA Kapustka, RG Stahl, WR Munns, and RJF Bruins
Monday, August 2, 8:00 AM to 11:30 AM, Meeting Room E 145.
Can we have it all? Balancing environmental protection and public policy.
Orme-Zavaleta, Jennifer*,1, 1 USEPA/ORD/NHEERL/WED, Corvallis, OR, USA
ABSTRACT- The US Environmental Protection Agency is charged with the responsibility for protecting public health and safeguarding our natural environment. This mission, developed in the aftermath of Silent Spring, faces new challenges with the ever increasing human domination of ecosystems that goes beyond chemical pollution. Challenges such as increased fragmentation of habitat, emerging infectious diseases, invasive species, biotechnology, and global climate change can affect the ecological goods and services to which society has become accustomed. With economic development leading to the demand for more housing, food, water, and waste management it is challenging to balance those benefits against environmental protection. Our conundrum is whether we can develop environmental policies that protect, to the degree demanded by society, the environment and provide for ecosystem services that society values.
Key words: environmental protection