How can natural resources be managed sustainably?
Answers
The EC activities that support the sustainability of natural resource management have to take into account the four dimensions featuring the natural resources production: productivity, variability, sustainability and the specific distribution of the effects of NR management practices (see Section 3.4.1 above). In order to be sustainable, natural resource management practices have to meet two criteria: a) they have to be environmentally sustainable, and b) they have to be financially profitable (economic sustainability). Economic profitability mainly relies on labour productivity which depends on the capital/labour ratio. Therefore, sustainable agricultural patterns have to be sufficiently capital intensive. This capital intensity has to rise with the reservation threshold of the rural workers.
Taking into account the spatial and temporal distribution of the benefits of more sustainable natural resource management patterns, realistic frameworks have to be agreed upon to share the costs, benefits and responsibilities of such patterns, between the rural households (poor and better-off), the local communities, the regional and national authorities, and the international public and private institutions. The principle that some environmental issues are global concerns to be addressed only through long-term international fiscal transfers is beginning to be accepted, but much remains to be done to set up realistic agreements on that basis. On the other hand, the governments of developing countries should accept that internationally financed programmes should be managed under the responsibility of international (private or public) institutions. Otherwise, they run the risk of a breakdown in confidence between partners and hence an interruption in funding. These frameworks need to be combined with others permitting closer monitoring of long-term trends and variability in the productivity of NR.
Improving environmental sustainability: activities, assumptions and risksAchievements as regards economic growth and poverty alleviation in rural areas can only be secured over time, provided they rely on the sustainable utilisation of natural resources. This constraint has to be addressed at several levels by EC assistance and beneficiaries:Monitoring of long-term trends and variability in the productivity of NR;Monitoring environmental deterioration threatening the health of rural populations (pesticides, pollution, and so forth);
Providing institutional support designed to adapt land tenure and other individual and collective NR ownership in order to ensure incentives for long term management.Assumptions and risksInternational organisations, governments, NGOs, and farmers have different views about the priority of long-term sustainability (they do not share the same discount rate). These differences are often understated, which raises the risk of limited ownership of policies and programmes. There are potential tensions between improving access to NR by the poor, and long-term sustainability. Monitoring systems rely on long-term international support for their viability.
Regulations ruling individual or collective access to natural resources have to be made clear, sufficiently stable and reliable to provide the necessary incentives to ensure long-term management of these resources.
There is a risk that the necessary international distribution of the costs and responsibilities for addressing global issues will be hard to find.