Cultural Environmentalism and the Constructed Commons

Van Houweling explores both the benefits and failings of conservation easements on land on the one hand and the licensing commons on the other. Conservation easement The tools of cultural environmentalism in the lights of objections to conservation easements and more general concerns with complicated and fragmented property rights are also considered. Among other things, she provides clear theoretical differences between the public domain, where freedom is based on the absence of property rights, and the licensing commons, where freedom is based on the absence on the preemptive exercise of the property rights by the rights holder in order to grant use privileges to users of the commons, and sometimes binds to those future users to add their own improvements back to the common pool.