presents Priorities in Ecosystem Health: A Public Goods Approach

A Lecture by Robert Hood Middle Tennessee State University Friday, April 28 EESAT 125 3:00 p.m.

Hood defends a dispute resolution procedure of "environmental triage," in which management priorities are based on the creation of ecosystem goods as an alternative to stakeholder negotiations. He suggests how to extend the notion of triage, first suggested by conservation biologists, to ecosystems management. When choosing among alternate management plans, priority should be given to protecting ecosystem goods and services such as biodiversity, evolutionary potential, complexity, resilience, and productivity. In contrast to stakeholder negotiations, where the emphasis is on distributing ecosystem goods, priority should be given to management plans that maximize the capacity for production of ecosystem goods and services, such as those that create habitat.

Hood teaches environmental ethics and other courses in moral and political philosophy at Middle Tennessee State University. In the summer of 2001 he will be teaching environmental ethics and doing research on ecosystem health in Brazil. His work has appeared in the journals Environmental Ethics and Ecosystem Health, as well as several edited volumes. Currently he is finishing a manuscript on ecosystem triage, various parts of which have been presented at Tel Aviv University and at Oxford University. He is one of the first two graduates of the UNT Master of Arts in Philosophy with a Concentration in Environmental Ethics.

Lecture is free and open to the public.

For special accommodation, call 565-2266.

CEP - PHIL - UNT - April 27, 2000