Natural Resources For The 21st Century

Sustainable development and the protection of the environment are concepts that have become inescapably connected. At the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in September 2002, the challenges facing the global environment were discussed at length. Air, water and marine pollution continue to rob millions of a decent life, loss of biodiversity continues, fish stocks are being depleted, desertification claims more fertile land, climate changes are having devastating effects, natural disasters are more frequent and developing countries are even more vulnerable. (Principle 13). This volume examines these important issues and adapts a practical approach. It outlines the programme of sustainable development in concrete fields of economic and environmental cooperation. The concept for this volume originated from the Conference on Exploitation and Management of Natural Resources in the Twenty-First Century: The Challenge of Sustainable Development. The Conference was organised by the British Institute of International and Comparative Law and the Department of Law at Queen Mary, University of London.

Papers presented at the Natural Resources for the 21st Century conference on November 14-17, 1988. Focuses on the current condition of our natural resource base and identifies factors that lead to its current conditions. Includes: population and economic patterns, climate, cropland and soils, forests, rangelands, wetlands, water resources wildlife, fisheries, wilderness, new technologies, recycling and outlines of perspective and analyses.

Natural Resources for the 21st century : An Evaluation of the Effects of Land use on Environmental Quality

This is an open access book. This edited volume discusses topics in environmental economics with a focus on sustainability, conservation, and responsible resource management. Written in memory of Peter Berck, Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Berkeley, the chapters expand upon his insights about the connections between human activities and the natural world. The volume includes a selection of research on agriculture, energy, forestry, fisheries, land use, recycling, and conservation – all parts of the broad question of how natural resources can meet human needs while avoiding environmental degradation. Written from a 21st century perspective, with concerns about climate, renewable energy, biodiversity, and sustainable development, this volume will be of interest to researchers and students of agricultural and resource economics.

This book documents some of the perceptions, strategies, and actions of natural resource agencies in the twenty-first century as they seek to respond to the changed reality influencing their policies and practices. It considers some of the responses in tools, techniques, and organizational change.

An introduction to the concepts and tools of natural resource economics, including dynamic models, market failures, and institutional remedies. This introduction to natural resource economics treats resources as a type of capital; their management is an investment problem requiring forward-looking behavior within a dynamic setting. Market failures are widespread, often associated with incomplete or nonexistent property rights, complicated by policy failures. The book covers standard resource economics topics, including both the Hotelling model for nonrenewable resources and models for renewable resources. The book also includes some topics in environmental economics that overlap with natural resource economics, including climate change. The text emphasizes skills and intuition needed to think about dynamic models and institutional remedies in the presence of both market and policy failures. It presents the nuts and bolts of resource economics as applied to nonrenewable resources, including the two-period model, stock-dependent costs, and resource scarcity. The chapters on renewable resources cover such topics as property rights as an alternative to regulation, the growth function, steady states, and maximum sustainable yield, using fisheries as a concrete setting. Other, less standard, topics covered include microeconomic issues such as arbitrage and the use of discounting; policy problems including the “Green Paradox”; foundations for policy analysis when market failures are important; and taxation. Appendixes offer reviews of the relevant mathematics. The book is suitable for use by upper-level undergraduates or, with the appendixes, masters-level courses.