| Titre | Yves Martin et l'eau | |
|---|---|---|
| Auteur | Jean-Luc Laurent | |
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Revue | Responsabilité et environnement |
| Numéro | no 65, janvier 2012 Actualité de la pensée d'Yves Martin | |
| Rubrique / Thématique | A – Actes du colloque du 19 mai 2011 |
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| Page | 11-12 | |
| Résumé anglais |
Water and the environment Yves Martin thought that economic incentives are more effective than regulations for managing a natural resource such as water, since they lead individuals to adopt behaviors in line with the general interest. His vision of the right management of water resources can be summarized as follows: “Watercourses and groundwater should be sufficiently replenished, and water should be of good quality and fill users' needs at a minimum cost for the community while conserving aquatic environments”.He defended these principles when criticizing the legislation applied to water resources. According to him, it was not judicious to establish a Malthusian set of regulations that subjected catchment to obtaining prior authorization and considerably restricted access to water under ground. On the contrary, he felt that public interventions should rely on incentives for drawing groundwater (at least from most aquifers) rather than using surface water. For this purpose, he proposed combining financial incentives (geographically modulated in significant ways depending on the aquifer) with regulations about how to protect this resource and about the technical conditions for tapping it (the duty to measure the quantity). The job of providing economic incentives should be handed over to water agencies (operating on a system of privileges and royalties) whereas the actions of regulation and prevention should be the duty of services that police the water supply. Public authorities should use the most effective tools and know how to combine them: regulation through water royalties, financial incentives and, if need be, penal sanctions.Yves Martin called for heavily adjusting water royalties so as to send an economic signal to users. To work as an incentive, royalties should be set high enough to affect stakeholders. Instead of being uniform, rates should take into account the costs of the measures users have to adopt for the general interest. This entailed criticism of the French fiscal tradition with its preference for low rates and a broad tax base. Source : Éditeur (via Cairn.info) |
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| Article en ligne | http://www.cairn.info/article.php?ID_ARTICLE=RE_065_0011 |
