Stewardship Incentives (draft in composition)
It is clear that neglect of land, water, and air is affecting our collective security. Invasive infestations continue to spread, biodiversity and pollinators are in decline, and weather extremes are increasingly hard to ignore. With forests fragmented, eroded, diseased and fueled, the yearly forested area burned has doubled since 1980, with unusually devastating forest fires. Super-hot fires vaporize soil nutrients and seal the soil, prohibiting the regeneration of native species and increasing the likelihood of desertification and ecosystem collapse. With the uncertainty of climate change trending toward certainty, we are facing cascading degradation of environmental resources upon which we depend, not limited to food and wood supply, clean water, clean air, fish and wildlife.
Prevention is our best option, in fact our cheapest option if we can muster a collective response in a short time frame. Specifically, controlling invasive species, managing forests, and transitioning away from a carbon-based economy. Not acting on all fronts will lock us into irreversible consequences.
How, and will policymakers respond? Will they make forest management voluntary, ignoring fuel loads that risk neighboring lands, or will they mandate forest management? Will they pass laws to ban the sale of ivy and glyphosate in a popular but meaningless gesture? Will bans and mandates elicit political gridlock, and will nursery sales affect the rate of ivy's spread, already in motion? Will banning glyphosate encourage farmers to switch to other herbicides still legal, and more toxic? The question is whether mandates, compromises and piecemeal regulations will beget neglect and be too little, too late.
We need to propose strategic reforms that address health, ecological, and economic concerns. Reforms should be founded on both our best science and best economics.
A Proposal for "Eco-assessments" and Property Tax Incentives
To begin, we need a way to measure ecological contributions on any property. That is, measure tree cover, stormwater management, wetland conservation, forest management, soil health, drain field health, invasive control, habitat quality, and other public benefits. Landowners wanting to participate in an incentive program should have the option to invite a certified "eco-assessor" to measure ecological benefits to receive an “eco-rating," plus suggestions to improve future ratings. This rating could be applied to reduce utility fees or property taxes, giving policy-makers tools to kick-start stewardship statewide.
The beauty of property tax breaks is that they are annual, so it's a repeating incentive making investments pay off. Incentives could be adjusted by counties to reflect different local needs.
Pesticide Regulatory Reform
Assuming that mandates or property tax incentives will motivate widespread control of invasive species (as they must, if we have any chance at preserving regional ecosystems), then we need to acknowledge that landowners, as they become frustrated with regrowth after invasive control, will likely misuse and overuse herbicides.
Training and testing of licensed practitioners is important, but for many consumers, regulations may do little to proactively motivate judicious applications. The public is loathe to read and follow the legal pesticide label. Even for licensed applicators, enforcement of regulations is usually after the fact. A proactive "risk management" reform might better reduce the overuse of herbicides, while allowing the public to purchase certain "restricted use" herbicides that are actually less toxic and safer for fish and wetlands than current over-the-counter options.
I am suggesting that it is possible to measure pesticide residues in our land, water and food supply, and that it should be possible to assess and attach environmental and health risks/costs - according to best available science - to the price of pesticide products. With the price tag being one label the public is more likely to read, this will encourage more judicious use of pesticides, and encourage chemical manufacturers to educate their own customers to apply correct rates of pesticides (herbicide) in correct seasons and conditions, drastically reducing off-target exposures. Rather than doing nothing in a divided political stalemate where both sides have valid points, a "responsibility fee" will promote both harm reduction and raise money for education and mitigation of any science-confirmed consequences or human health risks.
A "Tax Shift"
Regarding property tax breaks, the downside is that it reduces government revenues, so any proposal needs to balance taxation (revenue neutrality) by means of a "tax shift."
Reforms should mitigate and cushion market shifts, maintaining a working, fully-employed economy. I am proposing that lawmakers make a deal with taxpayers: 1) offer "eco-assessment" property tax breaks in exchange for 2) carbon tax increases. Carbon taxes could also replace sales taxes, another tax shift that reduces "regressive" harm to lower-income people who pay a disproportionate portion of their earnings relative to higher-income people.
Economists show that a carbon tax shift doesn't harm the economy, and actually improves it. With a resilient citizenry and economy, Washington State is the best place to demonstrate the benefits of responsible taxation to stimulate ecological, technological, and economic improvements - meaning jobs.
Similarly, shifting regressive sales taxes toward carbon and other "pollution taxes" of all toxic or wasteful consumer products and packaging will encourage safer, better products that aren't destined for the landfill.
If we don't reform our economy to respect natural limits, we could lose our region's health - biological, economic, and human. It won't happen tomorrow, but if we don't act soon, we could be - very likely will be - locked in to ecological decline if not ecological collapse. Eastern Washington forests could burn up, and Western Washington could eventually be entrenched with ungettable invasive infestations, primarily wall-to-wall ivy collapsing biodiversity. Let's act before it's too late.
Steve Richmond