Mountains are the home of significant ecological resources - wildlife habitat, fragile plant systems, delicate soils and water systems that serve the needs of a variety of populations, including communities located at the base of the mountains. These resources are subject to very visible and growing pressures, most of which are caused by the unique features of mountains. In this book, the extent to which the law protects the ecological systems of mountains is analyzed, using as case studies the impact of four mountain resorts in four ranges located in the USA and Canada. Each of the case studies involve different types of landowners (public, private, quasi-public), different ecological features and very different legal regimes. The book sets out to discover to what extent the law protects the mountains' ecological systems from the adverse impacts associated with the development, operation and expansion of resorts and how the law might better recognise the value of and protect these systems. In order to examine these issues the book takes an interdisciplinary approach, with contributions from lawyers, ecologists, political scientists and people associated with the tourism industry. It is acknowledged that the book cannot deal with every issue, but the main focus of the book is on activities on the mountains that affect their ecology and the ecology of communities at the base of the mountain and, conversely, how the activities of these communities might affect the mountains themselves. By concentrating on 'ecology', the book considers not only individual 'environmental' problems, but also the interactions between individual problems that result when all of the environmental problems are combined.

Thus, not only is the effectiveness of the law in dealing with a particular problem considered, but so is the effectiveness of law in addressing the complex interactions of systems.