Well, I guess that depends on our definition of environment. It's clearly vague, and the lines are completely blurred.
So yes, I'd agree with you, there is no one that is currently interested in the stewardship of the "environment" except for principled individuals that believe it should be taken care of. There are plenty of examples where people own pieces of land, and they take very good care of it (and sometimes opposite). I grew up in a country where most low-mid and middle class individuals owned sizable plots of land. They spent quite a fair bit of time and money tending to their plots because it was theirs and represented value to them. Even more so for commercial versions of such ownership; particularly forestry enterprises.
This is the case that free-market individuals make for the environment. Which is a concept that a lot of state-centered individuals find flawed in free-market thinking. Precisely because the definitions of "environment" differ. To state-centered individuals, the "environment" is something non-concrete, over-arching and pretty much difficult to delineate from the rest of the land. The opposite of that is where someone considers land to be theirs, for their exclusive use, and will thus develop it and maintain is value. If that value is due to the scenery, then it will be preserved.
So how does that figure into all the individual pieces of land that people own? Is my land not part of the larger eco-system of the planet? I'd argue it is, and I take pretty darn good care of it. Are we somehow saying that we can't extrapolate this to a larger scale?
For further reading, you might find this interesting:
But if you have land near the ocean, you may sail a few miles and throw it there. Your land is clean - the eco-system is not. Or, say, you have a river, and take most of it's water: your land is better off, then next lands were the river would have flow to not so much, and so on.
Sure could, and I'm guessing the current law framework would semi-allow it. Do you think it would be different if people were allowed to own pieces of ocean/sea?
So yes, I'd agree with you, there is no one that is currently interested in the stewardship of the "environment" except for principled individuals that believe it should be taken care of. There are plenty of examples where people own pieces of land, and they take very good care of it (and sometimes opposite). I grew up in a country where most low-mid and middle class individuals owned sizable plots of land. They spent quite a fair bit of time and money tending to their plots because it was theirs and represented value to them. Even more so for commercial versions of such ownership; particularly forestry enterprises.
This is the case that free-market individuals make for the environment. Which is a concept that a lot of state-centered individuals find flawed in free-market thinking. Precisely because the definitions of "environment" differ. To state-centered individuals, the "environment" is something non-concrete, over-arching and pretty much difficult to delineate from the rest of the land. The opposite of that is where someone considers land to be theirs, for their exclusive use, and will thus develop it and maintain is value. If that value is due to the scenery, then it will be preserved.