We can always trust the federal government or the UN to make them,
they have always done such a great job in protecting the environment.
Or we, as individual environmentalists, can participate in
establishing value by hooking up with one of the hundreds of local
land trusts that protect environmentally sensitive lands or with one
of the national groups that protect ecosystems rather than lobby
Congress. The bottom line is that individual citizens are best able
to establish the value of these environmental amenties, especially
when we forgo the purchase of other goods and services to protect
them. Government bureaucrats nor scientists have not shown any great
aptitude for establishing the value of ecosystems or particular
environmental amenties.
Stephen B. Lovejoy
Department of Agricultural Economics
Purdue University
1145 Krannert Building
West Lafayette, IN 47907-1145
phone: (317) 494-4244
fax: (317) 494-9176