Protecting the Environment Privately

Estefanía Campos  | 14 de septiembre de 2016  | Vistas: 347

Jeff Bennett, collaborator of the book Protecting the Environment Privately shares all the insights about this work, the objective of it, it’s philosophy and the key points of each chapter of the book, and even some examples, since he believes the environment can be protected better than it has been by the markets. About his motivation to write this book he says:

One of the things that drove me to preparing this book was the frustration, and it’s the frustration with the way economics treats the issue with the environment.”

He starts his analysis by talking about failure and the common critics made to the market. In his opinion, both the Government and the market have failures, so the premise of this book is to try to think through opportunities in market coordination of environmental assets. The bureaucratic centralized approach of Governments can be improved by bringing to play decentralized processes which will help in protecting the environment.

He introduces the term enviropreneurship, which refers to the environmental entrepreneurial spirit that should be working to fulfill the unsatisfied demand of environmental protection that currently exists. Later discusses how markets generate diversity, since they protect animals properly so they don’t go extinct, the differences between protected areas by the State, privately and in partnerships. Another topic discussed is the extends to water:

Individuals and private trusts are now going into the agriculture water markets and buying water to allow full environmental flows [...] so the flexibility that this water markets are providing is really quite outstanding.”

Bennett talks about the need to establish markets for endangered species, for which they have identified a source of supply for environmental services, the local people, and the buyers which usually are international organizations. Finally, concludes that decentralized markets are effective at generating and providing incentives and they facilitate mutually beneficial exchange to improve social coordination to improve the way we look after the environment.

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