Ly+Vuong


 * Interdisciplinary approach**

**Economic analysis of environmental policies in conservation** Introduction Economic growth and environmental protection are the biggest concerns in order to reach sustainable development. The concept that use of natural re-sources, environmental services, and eco-logical systems somehow should be "sustainable" has become one of the most widely invoked and debated ideas in the area of resource and environmental management. This concept needs not based on environmental standards alone but take into account economic efficiency in order to reach both goals of economic growth and environmental protection. Sustainability, as defined in the Bruntland Commission, is “development, which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to their own needs” [1]. Human “needs” based directly on production of the economy, which utilizes resources from the environment; therefore, environment and economics are closely related in term of sustainability. In the short term, economic activities effect the natural environment, but the effect that natural environmental condition has on the economy often appear in the long term, with different impacts in different areas and variable impacts on different groups of people. Therefore, it is often the case that economic activities focus on production efficiency without consideration of environmental impact. However, as environmental policies try to maintain the environment in a proper condition which will not compromise “the ability of the future generations to their own needs”, these policies need to consider economic efficiency, so that production of the economy could meet “the needs of the present” as well in order to reach sustainability. Through the economic analysis, we can locate whether one environmental policy, which is designed to meet the goal of sustainability, is efficient in term of economics or not. This paper will use economic analysis to evaluate environmental policies in conservation. The first part of the paper will explore economics and ecology as a trade-off between one and another. It will use the logic of efficiency in economics to examine environmental policies to analyze the cost and benefits in economic terms of conservation. The second half of the paper will demonstrate the trade off the example of the Safe Minimum Standard policy in conservation. This policy helps define the problem of sustainability, but it is not cost effective in term of social cost and benefit analysis and does not point directly to practical steps that can be taken to assure an efficient, sustainable economy. Moreover, it imposes excessively costs which may make the future worse off and also creates difficulties for developing countries.

[1] Bruntland Commission, //Our common future (//1987), 44

Research paper



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