What's Happening With Management of Natural Resources?

March 2024
Citation:
54
ELR 10205
Issue
3
Author
Barbara J. Goldsmith and Tara Waikem Flynn

Since passage of the early natural resource protection laws and regulations in the United States decades ago, legal, technical, and economic practitioners have been challenged with understanding the ever-changing and ever-evolving environmental law and policy landscape. Riveting changes have advanced the position of natural resources and related matters of conservation and biodiversity across domestic and international agendas, in corporate, government, and public interest agendas, and in the lives of everyday citizens. The need to prevent further ecosystem degradation, halt biodiversity loss, combat climate impacts, ensure food security, ensure access to clean water and air, and overall ensure a sustainable future seems to have finally hit home with diverse parties working toward like goals. As such, government, industry, nonprofit organizations, local communities, and others must adapt to new perspectives and approaches in navigating the complex paradigm of natural resource management and environmental protection—from broad societal needs to site-specific concerns. This Comment dives deeper into these concepts in order to review how the natural resource practice arena has transitioned from a “liability and enforcement” regime to a “protect and restore natural resources” regime, ever mindful of the related services, both human and ecological, provided by natural resources.

Barbara Goldsmith is Executive Director of the Ad-Hoc Industry Natural Resource Management Group and President of Barbara J. Goldsmith & Company. Tara Waikem Flynn is Projects Counsel with Barbara J. Goldsmith & Company.