I recently read that the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), a free-market environmental group in Bozeman, will celebrate its 25th anniversary on June 4th. Please join me in offering congratulations. PERC has done a great deal to improve America’s understanding of the institutions that promote and foster environmental quality, as well as those that harm and pollute ecosystems.

PERC educates the public about positive relationships between free markets and the environment. It is noted for wide outreach, in contrast to organizations that focus on academics and decision-makers. PERC merits the understanding of sincere environmentalists from across the political spectrum.

I consider Bozeman to be the Green epicenter of the Rockies. It is home to more than thirty environmental groups varying in size, scope, and purpose. Many of Bozeman’s environmental groups focus on preserving creatures and their habitats, specific areas such as Greater Yellowstone, and natural amenities such as land and water. Others focus on education, litigation, leadership development, and protecting the region’s ecosystems and their human communities. Almost without exception, liberals run the show.

PERC, in contrast, is a libertarian think tank that studies institutions. Its work is highly respected among professional economists. PERC scholars Terry Anderson, P. J. Hill, and Richard Stroup recently won Antony Fisher Prizes for two books, The Not So Wild Wild West and Eco-Nomics: What Everyone Should Know About Economics and the Environment.

PERC challenges the view that today’s liberals are the environment’s best stewards. PERC researchers employ microeconomics as both their gyroscope and their microscope. They analyze the information and incentives generated by specific institutional arrangements, and then describe the predictable environmental outcomes. One example: PERC associates have shown how private property rights can preserve viable communities of lobster, salmon, and trout, as well as protect water quality.

Last October, an essay by two highly credentialed environmentalists generated virulent discussion. “The Death of Environmentalism” explores the 30-year decline in the environmental movement’s political influence. The authors attribute the decline to excessive division within the movement, the lack of an overarching vision, and a failure to collaborate with other political groups. I celebrate the environmental movement’s original -- and successful -- goals. Now, however, a collectivist ideology governs the movement; PERC challenges this orientation.

The essay argues, “Environmental groups have spent the last 40 years defining themselves against conservative values like cost-benefit accounting, smaller government, fewer regulations, and free trade.” PERC, in contrast, belongs to the small contingent of environmental groups that uses these very principles to promote environmental values.

At the least, Greens might engage in dialogue with free-market environmentalists. A number of environmental groups, including Defenders of Wildlife, Ducks Unlimited, Trout Unlimited, and Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, utilize free-market principles to forward their mission.

For example, Defenders of Wildlife created a Wolf Compensation Trust in 1987 to pay ranchers for livestock losses due to wolves. The trust functions by shifting “economic responsibility for wolf recovery away from the individual rancher and toward the millions of people who want to see wolf populations restored.” By restructuring incentives, the trust has helped decrease ranchers’ resistance to wolf-reintroduction.

Many people prefer the safety of like-minded colleagues to an open dialogue among individuals of differing opinions. This is surely true in the environmental movement. Contrary to popular belief, there is a conservative faction deeply committed to environmental quality; environmentalists can be liberal, conservative, or libertarian. The environmental community in Bozeman -- and nationwide -- could benefit by recognizing shared values.

I suggest Greens court new alliances with groups that stress the environmental benefits of the market process and social entrepreneurship. This is especially important at a time when a growing number of U.S. citizens identify with conservative, classical liberal, or libertarian principles. Greens should seek the support of these groups, for they would find many natural allies among them.

I have no current affiliation with PERC, and I haven’t for two decades. Still, I’m hardly a neutral observer, as I founded PERC 25 years ago. I celebrate their success and hope their solid research will help define a renewed environmental perspective.