Sustainable Natural Resource Management

First Published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Natural resources support all human productivity. The sustainable management of natural resources is among the preeminent problems of the current century. Sustainability and the implied professional responsibility start here. This book uses applied mathematics familiar to undergraduate engineers and scientists to examine natural resource management and its role in framing sustainability. Renewable and nonrenewable resources are covered, along with living and sterile resources. Examples and applications are drawn from petroleum, fisheries, and water resources. Each chapter contains problems illustrating the material. Simple programs in commonly available packages (Excel, MATLAB) support the text. The material is a natural prelude to more advanced study in ecology, conservation, and population dynamics, as well as engineering and science. The mathematical description is kept within what an undergraduate student in the sciences or engineering would normally be expected to master for natural systems. The purpose is to allow students to confront natural resource problems early in their preparation.

Natural resource management refers to the management of the utilization of natural resources like water, land, plants and animals with a focus on ensuring the sustainability of life in the present and in the future. It is also concerned with the management of the interaction between people and natural landscapes. Water management, suitable land utilization planning and biodiversity conservation are generally integrated with industrial activities of agriculture, forestry, fisheries, mining and tourism, to ensure sustainable management. A change in the hydrological cycles, ecological cycles, climate, plants and geography, etc. has far-reaching and long-term impacts. Natural resource management is achieved through the multiple approaches of top-down, adaptive management, precautionary approach, community-based natural resource management and integrated natural resource management. This book elucidates the concepts and innovative models around prospective developments with respect to natural resource management. It is compiled in such a manner, that it will provide in-depth knowledge about the theories and practices of effective natural resource management. It is a complete source of knowledge on the present status of this important field.

This book is the fifth volume in the European Environmental Law Forum (EELF) Book Series. The EELF is a non-profit initiative established by environmental law scholars and practitioners from across Europe aiming to support intellectual exchange on the development and implementation of international, European and national environmental law in Europe. One of the activities of the EELF is the organisation of an annual conference.The fifth EELF Conference dedicated to 'Sustainable Management of Natural Resources - Legal Instruments and Approaches' was held in Copenhagen from the 30th of August to the 1st of September 2017 at the Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen, in collaboration with the Department of Law, Aarhus University.This book is a collection of peer reviewed contributions addressing various legal aspects of sustainable management of natural resources. Natural resources are in this book understood in broad terms encompassing biodiversity, water, air and soil, as well as raw materials. Based on the contributions, it can be asserted that despite many efforts there is still a long way to go in order to achieve sustainable management of natural resources. Making ecosystem integrity ultimately the bottom-line for sustainable development requires not only dedication in the design and coherence of (environmental) legislation at international, EU and national level, but also a strong commitment to the implementation and enforcement of the legislation. Thus, it is necessary to carefully consider how different legal instruments and approaches may pave the way for the sustainable management of natural resources.

This book includes contributions from scientists and representatives from government and non-governmental organisations working in the field of land management and use and on management of fires. The book is truly interdisciplinary and has both a research and application-oriented dimension. The list of topics includes sustainability and water management; sustainability and biodiversity conservation; the future sustainability of nature-based industries such as agriculture, mining, tourism, fisheries and forestry; sustainability, people and livelihoods; sustainability and landscapes planning; sustainability and land use planning; handling and managing forest fires. The papers are innovative and cross-cutting, and many have practice-based experiences. Also, this book, prepared by the Inter-University Sustainable Development Research Programme (IUSDRP) and the World Sustainable Development Research and Transfer Centre (WSD-RTC), reiterates the need to promote a sustainable use of land resources today.

Intended for aspiring and new practitioners of Participatory Research and Development (PR&D) as well as field-based researchers in developing countries. Highlights that agricultural research and development has become a joint approach to deal with diverse biophysical environments, multiple livelihood goals, rapid changes in local and global economies, and an expanded range for stakeholders over agriculture and natural resources.

This book develops the Sustainable Governance Approach and the principles of Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM). It provides practical examples of successes and failures in implementation, and lessons about the economics and governance of wild resources with global application. CBNRM emerged in the 1980s, encouraging greater local participation to conserve and manage natural and wild resources in the face of increasing encroachment by agricultural and other forms of land use development. This book describes the institutional history of wildlife and the empirical transformation of the wildlife sector on private and communal land, particularly in southern Africa, to develop an alternative paradigm for governing wild resources. With the twin goals of addressing poverty and resource degradation in the world’s extensive agriculturally marginal areas, the author conceptualises this paradigm as the Sustainable Governance Approach, which integrates theories of proprietorship and rights, prices and economics, governance and scale, and adaptive learning. The author then discusses and defines CBNRM, a major subset of this approach. Interweaving theory and practice, he shows that the primary challenges facing CBNRM are the devolution of rights from the centre to marginal communities and the governance of these rights by communities, a challenge which is seldom recognised or addressed. He focuses on this shortcoming, extending and operationalising institutional theory, including Ostrom’s principles of collective action, within the context of cross-scale governance. Based on the author’s extensive experience this book will be key reading for students of natural resource management, sustainable land use, community forestry, conservation, and development. Providing practical but theoretically robust tools for implementing CBNRM it will also appeal to professionals and practitioners working in communities and in conservation and development.

The fourth Factor X publication from the German Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt, UBA), Sustainable Development and Resource Productivity: The Nexus Approaches explores the interdependencies of sustainable development paths and associated resource requirements, describing and analysing the necessities for a more resource efficient world. The use of and competition for increasingly scarce resources are growing worldwide with current production and consumption patterns of industrialised economies soon to reach the point where the ecosphere will be overtaxed far beyond its limits. Against this background, this volume examines the important initiatives to monitor resource use at the international, EU and national level. The current trends and challenges related to sustainable resource use are discussed, including international challenges for a resource efficient world, megatrends, justice and equitable access to resources. In the second part of the book, contributions examine implementation strategies. They assess the concept known as circular economy and discuss the theory of growth and the role of the financial and education systems. The final section places special emphasis on practical examples. Overall, the book presents concrete ways and examples of achieving more sustainability in practice. Discussing solutions for a more sustainable use of natural resources, this book is essential reading for scholars and students of natural resources and sustainable development and decision-makers and experts from the fields of policy development, industry and civil society. The Open Access version of this book, available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003000365, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.