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Environmental Values

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The common heritage: What heritage? Common to whom?

Jonathon Porritt

Environmental Values 1(1992): 257-267. doi: 10.3197/096327192776680098

Global commons are natural goods which transcend national boundaries. A brief glance at management of oceans and terrestrial commons is succeeded by fuller discussion of rainforests, over which nations claim property rights, yet which perform global services. Leasing out could effect a desirable transfer of funds from North to South. Sustainable development requires these or other large incentives towards environmental protection in developing countries, but land and institutional reform are crucial to success. In conclusion, the anthropocentric ethic implicit in all such solutions is contrasted with the ecocentric one which may be necessary to preserve the biosphere in the future.

KEYWORDS: environment, biosphere, global commons, rainforests, property rights, stewardship, sustainability

CITATIONS in other Environmental Values articles:

Coastal and Marine Conservation in Britain: Ecology and Aesthetics, Land and Sea. Adam Cole-King

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