Some environmentalists believe that a pristine environment is a goal to be achieved regardless of the costs to human communities. Suri Ratnapala explains the need to balance threats to the environment with the threat to constitutional government that arises from ill-advised policy responses to the challenges of environmental protection. If this latter threat is unaddressed it will not only endanger our way of life by diminishing freedom and prosperity, it will also defeat our good intentions about the environment.

Dr Suri Ratnapala is Professor of Public Law at the University of Queensland.