Making Ecological Values Make Sense: Toward More Operationalizable Ecological Legislation

Value claims about ecological populations, communities, and systems appear everywhere in literature put out by leading environmental advisory institutions. This essay clarifies the content of such normatively significant value claims in two main steps. In it, I first outline the conception of ecological entities, functionality, and properties, I argue is operative in the background of modern ecology. I then assess the implications of that background theory for how policies and management strategy directives that refer to such entities, functionality, and properties, can be most reasonably interpreted and formulated.