Ecosystem Services and Shadow Governance

 In my course on ecosystem services the 5th module is devoted to government and how to form international networks to bring new laws that support ecosystem services approaches. I found that less than useful. I know what governance is. Building layers of bureaucrats who rule society as a sluzhba while slopping the masses and owning allegiance to plutocrats is less than good.

Interestingly a square meter of Danish soil may have more than 15 million organisms in it and billions of individual bacteria. Alaska has some areas comparable to Denmark I would think. Ecosystem services is a term mentioned in scholarly articles yet promulgating laws in Alaska with that term is not established. Plainly defense of the natural ecosphere is a vital interest of the human species yet the ecosystem services approach may be too bound up with the established political economy to accomplish that. The entire module on governance in this ecosystem services course is somewhat concerning and less than useful as it seems the course is instructing methods for building political structures and even sedulous international political networks rather than instructing on how to implement ecosystem service analyses scientifically, practically.

We were asked to look into national government laws that use the term 'ecosystem services' and send in the findings to an international database. The title of the discussion prompt was 'Global database on emerging laws on Ecosystem Services'

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18uu-PGp9g6UHCBUt_Ug6BtKaQASP6VUErFqGwCuSo2o/edit?usp=sharing

There is already a surfeit of government bureaucrats and careerists affiliated with movements of various kinds that don't actually get things done yet do tend to take over governments and make them ineffective. Building international shadow governments with however honorable an operating premises is still inimical to democratic, national government.

I have written before that combining ecospheric rescue and restoration efforts with a particular divisive political agenda is a sure way to lose much support. Because the players involved have drank the same kool aid they fail to understand the problem. At the least it will waste a lot of time and create the externaility of opportunity costs concerning failure to find an actual efficient plan that a democracy could consider and vote to use.