ABSTRACT
The barriers to effective ecosystem exploitation and rehabilitation are often both ecological and sociopolitical. Improved understanding of the ecological processes of rehabilitation will be valuable only if it can be implemented in land management decisionmaking. The techniques of decision analysis were developed initially for business management. This chapter discusses the value of perfect information about some of the factors influencing the outcome of mining and rehabilitation decisions. To weigh alternatives for regulatory action, mining, and rehabilitation, the decisionmaking must identify criteria for measuring the success of various actions in meeting their objectives. Using expected dollars as the financial decision criterion assumes that both the state and the mining company have linear utility for money; i.e., they are risk neutral. Decision analysis provides a framework for integrating the economic, ecological, and engineering aspects of ecosystem exploitation and rehabilitation.
