Institutional solutions to market failure on the landscape scale

This paper offers an ecologically-based view of land and land value, building upon the multiproduct nature of ecosystems and upon landscape ecology, The paper questions the ability of markets to create optimal landscapes, even when traditional methods of internalizing externalities are applied, and concludes that attempting a complete valuation of ecosystems is quixotic. Achieving sustainable landscapes requires both sufficient ecological knowledge and institutions capable of overcoming landscape-scale market failure. Accordingly, the paper examines forms of public and private ownership in the United States to assess how well particular institutional conditions might facilitate ecological adaptation there.