Natural resource management

Natural resource management

The various approaches applied to natural resource management include:

  • Top-down (command and control)
  • Community-based natural resource management
  • Adaptive management
  • Precautionary approach
  • Integrated natural resource management

What is natural resource management (NRM)?

Introduction Natural Resource Management (NRM) refers to the sustainable utilization of major natural resources, such as land, water, air, minerals, forests, fisheries, and wild flora and fauna. Together, these resources provide the ecosystem services that provide better quality to human life.

What is advanced natural resource management course?

This advanced natural resource management course examines the need for laws and policies regarding natural resources. Students examine why laws are made and the reasons for laws currently in place.

How is natural resource management studied?

Natural resource management can be studied at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Programs may offer tracks in fisheries, wildlife management or range management.

What is quality natural resource management?

In 2005 the government of New South Wales, established a Standard for Quality Natural Resource Management, to improve the consistency of practice, based on an adaptive management approach. In the United States, the most active areas of natural resource management are wildlife management often associated with ecotourism and rangeland management.

Natural resource management (NRM) is the management of natural resources such as land, water, soil, plants and animals, with a particular focus on how management affects the quality of life for both present and future generations (stewardship).

Natural resource management deals with managing the way in which people and natural landscapes interact. It brings together land use planning, water management, bio-diversity conservation, and the future sustainability of industries like agriculture, mining, tourism, fisheries and forestry. It recognizes that people and their livelihoods rely on the health and productivity of our landscapes, and their actions as stewards of the land play a critical role in maintaining this health and productivity.[1]

Natural resource management specifically focuses on a scientific and technical understanding of resources and ecology and the life-supporting capacity of those resources.[2] Environmental management is similar to natural resource management. In academic contexts, the sociology of natural resources is closely related to, but distinct from, natural resource management.

Natural resource management approaches

Natural resource management approaches can be categorized according to the kind and right of stakeholders, natural resources:

  • State property: Ownership and control over the use of resources is in hands of the state. Individuals or groups may be able to make use of the resources, but only at the permission of the state. National forest, National parks and military reservations are some US examples.
  • Private property: Any property owned by a defined individual or corporate entity. Both the benefit and duties to the resources fall to the owner(s). Private land is the most common example.
  • Common property: It is a private property of a group. The group may vary in size, nature and internal structure e.g. indigenous neighbors of village. Some examples of common property are community forests.
  • Non-property (open access): There is no definite owner of these properties. Each potential user has equal ability to use it as they wish. These areas are the most exploited. It is said that "Nobody's property is Every body's property". An example is a lake fishery. Common land may exist without ownership, in which case in the UK it is vested in a local authority.
  • Hybrid: Many ownership regimes governing natural resources will contain parts of more than one of the regimes described above, so natural resource managers need to consider the impact of hybrid regimes.

Natural resource management issues are inherently complex and contentious. First, they involve the ecological cycles, hydrological cycles, climate, animals, plants and geography, etc. All these are dynamic and inter-related. A change in one of them may have far reaching and/or long term impacts which may even be irreversible. Second, in addition to the complexity of the natural systems, managers also have to consider various stakeholders and their interests, policies, politics, geographical boundaries, and economic implications. It is impossible to fully satisfy all aspects at the same time. Therefore, between the scientific complexity and the diverse stakeholders, natural resource management is typically contentious.

The various approaches applied to natural resource management include:

  • Top-down (command and control)
  • Community-based natural resource management
  • Adaptive management
  • Precautionary approach
  • Integrated natural resource management

Community-based natural resource management

The community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) approach combines conservation objectives with the generation of economic benefits for rural communities. The three key assumptions being that:

locals are better placed to conserve natural resources,

people will conserve a resource only if benefits exceed the costs of conservation, and

people will conserve a resource that is linked directly to their quality of life.

When a local people's quality of life is enhanced, their efforts and commitment to ensure the future well-being of the resource are also enhanced. Regional and community based natural resource management is also based on the principle of subsidiarity.

Adaptive management

The primary methodological approach adopted by catchment management authorities (CMAs) for regional natural resource management in Australia is adaptive management.

This approach includes recognition that adaption occurs through a process of ‘plan-do-review-act’. It also recognizes seven key components that should be considered for quality natural resource management practice:

Integrated natural resource management

Integrated natural resource management (INRM) is a process of managing natural resources in a systematic way, which includes multiple aspects of natural resource use (biophysical, socio-political, and economic) meet production goals of producers and other direct users (e.g., food security, profitability, risk aversion) as well as goals of the wider community (e.g., poverty alleviation, welfare of future generations, environmental conservation). It focuses on sustainability and at the same time tries to incorporate all possible stakeholders from the planning level itself, reducing possible future conflicts. The conceptual basis of INRM has evolved in recent years through the convergence of research in diverse areas such as sustainable land use, participatory planning, integrated watershed management, and adaptive management. INRM is being used extensively and been successful in regional and community based natural management.