Good Badger, Bad Badger: The Impact of Perspective on Wildlife Law and Policy 41
good Badger, Bad Badger: the imPact of PersPectiVe on wildlife law and Policy
peter l. Fitzgerald* i. introduction
The United Kingdom is considering embarking on an unprecedented revision of its wildlife laws. The Law Commission of England and Wales1 is examining how it might update the pastiche of governmental policies, statutory measures, and caselaw governing the existing patchwork of measures affecting wildlife in England and Wales, but also to establish a more coherent and transparent framework with which to address wildlife issues for many years to come and to also serve as a model to other common law jurisdictions. The Law Commission’s Consultation Paper on Wildlife2 describes a project that is simultaneously very ambitious, and at the same time quite circumscribed by the practicalities of the task. Thus, there is an inherent tension between whether the project is aimed at merely codifying the existing status quo, or whether it could more broadly provide the basis for a new approach to dealing with wildlife and those that might reasonably be anticipated to occur in the near future. That is not to suggest that the focus of this wildlife reform effort should necessarily be aimed at changing existing policies and practices law), and indeed the Law Commission’s remit for this project is that