The controversial issue of the environmental protection act stepping into matters of private propert -

However, even with extremely low levels of population, people could barely subsist on it! But the Indian standard of living was extremely low and their population sparse. Once people got beyond a primitive standard of living, common property became a serious problem, one that private ownership corrected. Private property assures accountability.

A person who owns property will reap the rewards of good stewardship and bear the consequences of poor stewardship. The owner who lets his land erode pays the price because the value of that land sinks as soon as the erosion becomes visible. The owner who protects the land enhances or sustains its value. In general, private property makes good stewardship pay. When property rights are insecure or incomplete, so that someone else bears the costs or reaps the rewards, accountability is missing.

Private Property and the Environment: Two Views - Foundation for Economic Education

That is the case with the Amazon rain-forest. In Brazil, government policies are encouraging deforestation of the rain-forest through subsidies and tax credits. The biggest effect is that owners of land reaping the rewards of ownership without paying the costs, and thus are encouraged to act irresponsibly. How to use audacity study by the World Resources Institute by no means a group committed to private property concludes that cattle ranching and settlements by small farmers are the major factors behind deforestation.

Both of those activities are heavily subsidized by the government.

When Property Rights, Environmental Laws Collide

Author Robert Repetto says that the subsidies encourage the livestock industry to cut down trees to promote pastureland and encourage settlers to turn forests into farmland. In addition, the government subsidizes the forest products industry. Under a system of true private ownership, where owners were required to pay the full cost of their activities, the Amazon forest would be far more likely to be preserved. With so much forested land, some conversion of trees to pasture does not pose an environmental problem; some land undoubtedly will be more productive as pasture.

However, where cutting is Essay novel peace separate costly, owners would refrain from cutting trees.

When Property Rights, Environmental Laws Collide : NPR

The trees were simply quite valuable when cut; to keep them standing longer would have been wasteful to society. Furthermore, in a system of private property, individuals who believe that the forests will be valuable in the future have a strong incentive to protect them. Some might be speculators who believe that the value of endangered species in the future will outweigh the current cost of preserving the land from cultivation.

Under the present scheme in Brazil, the cost of preservation is high because taxpayers are subsidizing so many of the costs of devastation. Others would preserve the rain-forest in a private property system are likely to be private groups and individuals concerned about ecological balance.

In fact, today, non-profit organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund and The Nature Conservancy are taking steps to save tropical forestlands in Latin America.

In conclusion, what causes environmental destruction is the lack of private property rights, when resources are owned in common or by the government. Strengthening private property rights will improve the chances for wildlife and forests. Jane Shaw seems to assume that my quarrel is with private property. But it is not: If Brazil had a Homestead Act similar to that of the U. It is what is done that portends disaster, not by whom it is done.

Private Property and the Environment: Two Views

But, one may say, ecological damage is far less likely to occur if property is in private hands. They just want to be able to say, 'Nope, we're going to now regulate that property, and you can't do anything with it, and if you do, we're going to throw you in jail. But environmental groups, after obtaining records under the Freedom of Information Act, have filed a brief in the case with a different version of the facts.

The expert, says Levine, advised the Sacketts "to hold off on doing anything further until you get things settled with the government.

Brief Notes on the Environmental Protection Act of

Seven months after the EPA notified the Sacketts that they were illegally filling wetlands, the agency sent the couple a document known as an administrative compliance order.

The EPA ordered the couple to remove the fill and restore the wetlands, and noted that they could be subject to fines levied by a federal court. Six months later, the Sacketts filed suit to challenge the compliance order. Two federal courts threw the case out, saying that the order did not itself seek enforcement or penalties and was not a final judgment against the couple.

And that is the heart of this case. Every appeals court in the nation that has ruled on the issue has reached the same conclusion. They have all said that at this stage of a permit dispute, there is nothing to review since the government has not sought enforcement of its order, much less proved a violation of the Clean Water Act in court.

Nor has any fine been imposed.