Get the Picture: A Personal History of Photojournalism

This book seeks to explore the desirability and feasibility of placing ecological science at the center of an understanding of pesticide law and policy, and it will be the first ever to explore the ecological and legal landscapes related to pesticide use in an interdisciplinary fashion. Although concerns over the ecological impacts of pesticides such as DDT fueled the environmental movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, and led to the creation of the field of environmental law, the ecological impacts of pesticide use have been largely ignored by the law and by legal scholars for more than 30 years. Despite the substantial impacts of pesticides on the environment, most environmental law texts touch only briefly and in a cursory manner on pesticide issues. Similarly, ecological texts dealing with pesticide impacts largely ignore the role of the law in addressing these concerns. This book will be the first to provide a serious treatment of the significance of pesticide issues in environmental law and the first to provide an ecological perspective on the legal issues.
Only very recently have new ecological understandings demonstrated that current environmental laws are wholly inadequate to address ecological impacts of pesticide use. Recent studies demonstrate that the actions taken in the 1970s and early 1980s to ban or restrict certain ecologically harmful pesticides, such as DDT and its relatives, have done little to protect wildlife, including threatened and endangered species, or ecological systems, from the harms of pesticide use. A 2004 Center for Biological Diversity Report concludes that 375 threatened or endangered species are currently at risk of extinction from pesticide use in the U.S. Moreover, a 2006 demonstrates that the impacts from pesticides extend to international economy. A recent study concludes that insects provide ecological services, such as pest control, pollination, and grazing land clean-up, amounting to more than $57 billion per year in the U.S. alone. A 2006 National Research Council Report concludes that populations of pollinators and other insects providing ecological services are in serious decline, due in large part to pesticide use.
As was set forth in the first book of the Ecology and Law series, four major factors have influenced the manner in which environmental effects of pesticide use are addressed by society: "1) "ecology," i.e., the developing science of ecology; 2) "public culture," i.e., the emergence of a public culture that increasingly embraces an ethos of nature and sustainability; 3) "public policy," i.e., local statute and federal policies, largely the result of the arousal of vigorous environmental movements and the emergence of "ecosystem regimes" as central players in the environmental policy debate; and 4) "environmental law," i.e., environmental constitutional provisions, legislation, regulations, court rulings, and international agreements, laws and treaties. Although each of these influences constitutes its own academic discipline, they are inextricably intertwined. Historically, each academic discipline, if addressing the other influences at all, has only given scant treatment to them. This book strives to integrate all four influences in a more balanced and interdisciplinary manner.
The structure of this book will be an organized exploration of the co-evolution of pest control and pesticide law. After an introduction, which will provide an overview of the complexities of issues associated with pesticide use both from a legal and an ecological perspective, the author will explore the ecology of pests and the evolution of the control or pests. Next, she will provide an in-depth treatment of the ecological impacts of pesticide use, followed by an exploration of the evolution of the law in response to such impacts. The book will then address the legacy of past pesticide use. Finally, the conclusion will analyze how recent developments in ecological science can be used to inform the law, and will propose a number of potential ways in which the law could be changed to respond to better ecological understandings.