Ecosystem Services in U.S. Environmental Law and Governance for the Ecosystem-Based Management Practitioner

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of ecosystem services issues in United States (U.S.) law and governance for the Ecosystem-Based Management (EBM) practitioner. A brief overview summary of a suite of U.S. federal environmental laws where ecosystems services are relevant is presented along with a high-level overview of ecosystem services in federal and state agency regulations as it helps inform ecosystem-based management. As with the published science-based literature on ecosystem services, there is also a sizeable law-based literature available on ecosystem services. A HeinOnline law journal library focused search identified 1903 legal articles that contained reference to ecosystem services. Focusing on a snapshot of key literature, this chapter presents an overview of those articles that contained “ecosystem services” or “ecosystem based management” just in the article’s title. From this survey across the breadth of law journals, a suite of ecosystem services topics related to EBM in environmental law are identified and summarized. Overall, the goal of this chapter is to present a high-level overview and direct the reader to resources to find more in-depth legal analyses of select ecosystem services topics.