Join the Mackinac Center’s Environmental Policy Initiative on June 30, 2020 for our Virtual Policy Forum, “Seven Principles of Sound Environmental Management.”
Joe Lehman, president of the Mackinac Center, will share opening remarks and then will be followed by our featured speakers:
Within most of our lives, we have witnessed a drastic change in societal attitudes toward the natural environment. Many among us will likely remember a time when the great outdoors was considered something to be contended with, conquered, and possibly feared. However, as we have improved both our understanding of the natural environment and our technological capacity, our attitudes toward it are changing.
As we noted in the opening section of our just-published paper, “Seven Principles of Sound Environmental Policy,” we now understand that “proper stewardship of our forests, rivers, rangelands and open spaces is an essential part of our everyday life.” And, just as importantly, many people, businesses, government agencies, and non-profit organizations have recognized that “individuals and organizations possess the local knowledge needed to make effective stewardship decisions.” Therefore, we believe that whenever we can relocate “land use and management decisions from state bureaucracies to individuals in the field,” we “will incentivize the best decisions,” without the need for intrusive regulations, or so-called experts to monitor and approve or disprove of our every action and decision.
In our virtual policy forum, Todd and Jason will discuss how the seven basic principles presented in their new publication can start legislators and regulators off on the right path by ensuring private property rights are protected and the productive and creative abilities of free markets are maximized.
This event will take place on Tuesday, June 30 at 2 p.m. EDT. To RSVP and receive access to the forum, please register below.
Tuesday, June 30, 2020
2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. EDT
Online virtual program
To join, please RSVP
Call our Events office at
Registration is closed.
Jason Hayes is the director of Environmental Policy for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
Jason has spent almost three decades studying and working in environmental and energy policy. He worked as a backcountry ranger in British Columbia’s provincial parks, as a forester in British Columbia’s boreal forest, and researched National Parks management and grizzly bear biology with the Fraser Institute in Calgary, Alberta. He spent over a decade researching and communicating energy and environmental policy with the Canadian and American energy industry.
An engineer by training, Joseph G. Lehman joined the Mackinac Center in 1995 and was named president in 2008. During his tenure Michigan has seen numerous free-market policy advances in education, labor and state fiscal affairs. Frequently published in national and state media, Lehman also has trained more than 600 public policy executives internationally on strategic leadership and communications. He and his wife are founders of Midland County Habitat for Humanity.
Todd Myers is a beekeeper and the Director of the Center for the Environment at Washington Policy Center. He is one of the nation’s leading experts on free-market environmental policy. He formerly served on the executive team at the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, and is currently a member of the Puget Sound Salmon Recovery Council.
