Responses

Abstract

People and governments have always responded to environmental deterioration. The ancient Chinese, for example, appointed inspectors to ensure that cultivated land was not degraded through the use of unsuitable farming methods. Ancient Greek and Roman scholars wrote about soil husbandry and land management. Plato described in The Laws what could be considered as the earliest known enunciation of the ‘polluter pays principle’:

‘Water is easily polluted by the use of any kind of drug. It therefore needs the protection of a law, as follows: whoever purposely contaminates water shall be obliged in addition to paying an indemnity, to purify the spring or receptacle of the water, using whatever method of purification is prescribed.’ (The Laws, Book VIII, p. 845)