Summary
Quality assessments with respect to our environment are done in many different ways. Generally these assessments are connected with functions which the environment has to accomplish for man. These are partial approaches in which some characteristics are selected from the complex reality. Although such assessments are useful for the solution of conflicts, they are insufficient for long term strategies. We need a view on the totality, the ‘self-ordering’ of nature. Judgements based upon such a concept can be placed opposite the economical ones, which follow conscious ordering by man. Quality concepts like these can have a meaning in different fields:
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- In conflicts between interests. Many times we are aware that ecological arguments are much stronger than we are able to express. A universal concept helps to find a reconciliation of points of view.
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- In current quality-assessments. By comparing them to a universal concept we can experience the opportunities for the long term in short-term solutions.
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- In policy-making we are overflowed almost daily by economic value concepts pretending to be all-embracing. Ecologists have to counter them.
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In this paper the word ‘fen’ is used in order to avoid linguistic problems. The Dutch word for the mentioned watertype is ‘ven’ (plur. ‘vennen’). The word refers to small ponds on pleistocene soils with a more or less strongly fluctuating water level. ‘Fen’ and ‘ven’ are not completely synonymous.
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Schroevers, P.J. The need of an ecological quality-concept. Environ Monit Assess 3, 219–226 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00396214
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00396214