lating between those who view freer trade as an essential condition of sustainable development
and those who regard it as that concept’s ultimate sell-out Esty, 1994; Anderson et al., 1995; Gale,
1997, 2000.
Trade promoters, backed by the discipline of neo-classical economics, have pushed for freer
trade to stimulate economic growth and develop- ment. They fear that the environment will be used
as a new, powerful rationale to justify another round of ‘green’ protectionism, strangling the
globalization process and recreating the sub-opti- mal, nationalized, closed trading systems of the
past. Protectionist policies are fundamentally wrong headed, they argue, because trade is a
second-best
policy to
achieve environmental
goals, and cannot substitute for needed domestic measures Bhagwati, 1993.
Conversely, environmentalists are deeply con- cerned about the impact of trade on natural
ecosystems and its potential to accelerate biodi- versity loss through habitat destruction and
degradation. Since the purpose of open trade arrangements is to promote economic growth and
because current growth patterns are damaging global, national and local ecosystems, environ-
mentalists argue that growth is not desirable and that the policies that promote it should be op-
posed Daly, 1993. The environmental movement is split, however, over what their precise objec-
tives should be with regard to global trade ar- rangements. Some advocate a policy of national
self-sufficiency a form of eco-autarky that envis- ages the production within a country’s own bor-
ders of the vast majority of a society’s much reduced consumption of goods and services
Daly and Cobb, 1994. Others argue for better regulation of international trade relations via such
policies as the internationalization of the polluter pays principle; the use of full-cost accounting,
eco-certification and labelling, and life-cycle anal- ysis; and the admission of process and production
methods to discriminate between otherwise like products Esty, 1994; Repetto, 1994.
In this paper, I do not examine the trade and environment debate trade per se. Its purpose in-
stead is to elucidate the tension that exists be- tween two principles: one central to ecology; the
other to economics. My goal is to draw attention to a fundamental tension between the economic
principle of specialization that lies at the heart of trade theory and the ecological principle of diver-
sification embedded in the ecosystem approach to nature. I argue that a central requirement in
making international and national trade relations sustainable lies in reconciling these two principles
so that the motor of economic growth — special- ization — drives the engine of development at a
speed and in a direction compatible with the central mechanism of ecosystem health and stabil-
ity — diversification.
2. The ecosystem approach
Since it was first coined in 1935 by Arthur Tansley, the ecosystem concept has generated dis-
agreement and controversy Bocking, 1994. In a review of the concept’s history, Bocking notes
that many ecologists opposed the introduction of the term, preferring to concentrate on studying
the behaviour, interactions, and responses of indi- viduals and populations to environmental condi-
tions rather than entire ecosystems Bocking, 1994: p. 16. On the other hand, the concept has
proved resilient in the face of significant criticisms concerning its definitional fuzziness and failure to
generate testable scientific hypotheses Bocking, 1994; Grumbine, 1994, 1997; Kay and Schneider,
1994; Christensen et al., 1996. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, it took on a new lease of life,
becoming embedded in the theory and practice of ecosystem-based management, referred to here
as the ecosystem approach Franklin, 1993; Slo- combe, 1993; Grumbine, 1994, 1997; Keiter, 1994;
Alpert, 1995; Clayoquot Sound Scientific Panel, 1995.
Disagreements occur among practitioners of the ecosystem approach also, the central tension
being the degree to which ecosystems are to be manipulated
and managed
to meet
human needs. The more management-oriented one’s ap-
proach is, the greater the tendency to employ an anthropocentric value set and to work within
existing structures to achieve identified, product- oriented goals. Conversely, the more ecosystem-
oriented one’s approach is, the greater is the tendency to employ an ecocentric value set
aimed at
preserving ecosystem
health. Yet,
notwithstanding such differences in interpreta- tion, the promise of the ecosystem approach is
that it creates space to engage in a fundamental re-thinking of the paradigm governing human-
ity’s relationship with the natural world, creat- ing ‘an opportunity to promote radical change’
Bell, 1994: p. 24.
The essence of the ecosystem approach is the adoption of a systems approach to nature, em-
phasizing its holistic, hierarchical, interdependent and complexchaotic structures and processes.
The approach contains also a positive concept of ecosystem health, a key indicator of which is
the maintenance of biodiversity, and implies the need for adaptive management as well, a process
requiring a remarkable level of inter-governmen- tal cooperation among state agencies and the
democratization and devolution of management responsibilities to those who most suffer the
consequences of ecosystem degradation and de- struction
Franklin, 1993;
Slocombe, 1993;
Grumbine, 1994, 1997; Keiter, 1994; Alpert, 1995; Clayoquot Sound Scientific Panel, 1995;
Christensen et al., 1996. Taken together, the above three insights con-
stitute a fundamental critique of modern, indus- trialized, single-species approaches to natural
resource management. The ecosystem approach replaces the dominant reductionist and mecha-
nistic model of nature as a resource to be ex- ploited to generate use and exchange values with
a systemic and biological model that emphasizes the goal of ecosystem health and integrity in the
generation of a wider and more diffuse set of use, exchange, existence, option and, for some,
intrinsic values. The key difference separating the industrialized from the ecosystem approach
is
the former’s
manipulation of
ecosystem parameters over the short term to achieve large
increases in the goods and services with high exchange value. This can be contrasted with the
latter’s aim to preserve the health of an ecosys- tem within the parameters of its natural varia-
tion, generating a steady flow of anthropo- centric and non-anthropocentric goods and ser-
vices indefinitely Botkin, 1990; Wilson et al., 1994.
It is in its focus on ecosystem health and in- tegrity that one discovers the central ecosystem
principle of diversification. The concept is most widely used as a suffix in the term biodiversity,
where it refers to the variety of life at all levels —
genetic, species
and ecosystem
Wilson, 1992. Diversity is critical because it contributes
to the maintenance of ecosystem health and in- tegrity. According to Christensen et al.:
Biological diversity provides for both stability resistance to and recovery resilience from
disturbances that disrupt important ecosystem processes. Resistance often results from com-
plex linkages among organisms, such as food webs that provide alternate pathways for flows
of energy and nutrients. The presence of numer- ous organisms with similar capabilities —
sometimes inappropriately viewed as redundan- cies — also provides for ecosystem stability as
well as optimal functioning …. The importance of species diversity to the ability of ecosystems
to recover ecosystem processes such as produc- tivity following a disturbance or perturbation
has been convincingly demonstrated in long- term studies of productivity responses to
drought in grasslands …. Christensen et al., 1996: p. 11.
Diversification, therefore, is a central principle of the ecosystem approach, viewed as a vital
component of nature’s self-management. Diver- sity functions to maintain ecosystem health and
integrity by assimilating andor permitting re- covery
from perturbations.
The conclusion
drawn by ecosystem theorists and practitioners is that diversity should be maintained at all lev-
els, therefore, to maximize the opportunities for ecosystem maintenance. Conversely, the simplifi-
cation of ecosystems should be resisted, since it jeopardizes their capacity to exhibit ‘homeorhe-
sis’, i.e. their capacity to return to a pre-per- turbed trajectory Christensen et al., 1996, p.
14.
3. International trade theory
