Environmental law and contrasting ideas of nature : a constructivist approach / edited by Keith H. Hirokawa, Albany Law School.

New York : Cambridge University Press, 2014.

xviii, 343 pages ; 24 cm.

"Law's ideas of nature appear in different doctrinal and institutional settings, historical periods, and political dialogues. Nature underlies every behavior, contract, or form of wealth, and in this broad sense influences every instance of market transaction or governmental intervention. Recognizing that law has embedded discrete constructions of nature helps in understanding how humans value their relationship with nature. This book offers a scholarly examination of the manner in which nature is constructed through law, both in the "hard" sense of directly regulating human activities that impact nature, and in the "soft" manner in which law's ideas of nature influence and are influenced by behaviors, values, and priorities. Traditional accounts of the intersection between law and nature generally focus on environmental laws that protect wilderness. This book will build on the constructivist observation that when considered as a culturally contingent concept, "nature" is a self-perpetuating and self-reinforcing social creation"-- Provided by publisher.

English

August 14, 2014

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Machine generated contents note: 1. Nature in a constructed world: grounding the constructivist method Rik Scarce and Keith H. Hirokawa; 2. An unnatural divide: how law obscures individual environmental harms Katrina Fischer Kuh; 3. Defining nature as a common pool resource Jonathan D. Rosenbloom; 4. Property constructs and nature's challenge to property perpetuity Jessica Owley; 5. Perceiving change and knowing nature: shifting baselines and nature's resiliency Robin Kundis Craig; 6. Animals and law in the American city Irus Braverman; 7. Boundaries of nature and the American city Stephen R. Miller; 8. Constructing nature the radical way: extreme environmentalism and law Rik Scarce; 9. Wilderness imperatives and untrammeled nature Sandra B. Zellmer; 10. Native American values and laws of exclusion Catherine Iorns-Magallanes; 11. Challenging what appears 'natural': the environmental justice movement's impact on the environmental agenda Shannon M. Roesler; 12. The transformation of water Dan A. Tarlock; 13. Framing watersheds Craig Anthony Arnold; 14. The last, last frontier Michael Burger.