Reframing resources and public goods: an integrative approach to natural resources security at regional scale (2024)

Transboundary natural resource management; Rationale, challenges and way forward

Given that nature tends to transcend politics and geography, ecosystems remain largely oblivious to boundaries, functioning as coherent systems regardless of maps and borders. Indeed ecosystems often span national borders and create and even impose international linkages that demand holistic and integrated management. International borders are however political as opposed to ecological. Many of these ecosystems are thus subject to differing management and land use regimes which are often incompatible. This often leads to their destruction making their management cumbersome to the parties involved. This calls for the management of such ecosystems and their resources to move from on site, local and national level approaches towards broader approaches that are transboundary in nature. The recognition of the transboundary nature of many environmental problems has led to an increasing number of governments developing policies and institutions charged with the primary duty of managing transboundary environmental issues. The interconnected nature of transboundary environmental issues has necessitated and pushed them to engagement in transboundary agreements to address them. Transboundary natural resource management is therefore any process of cooperation across boundaries that facilitates or improves the management of natural resources to the benefits of all parties concerned (Griffin et al 1999). It therefore attempts to address the issues of managing natural resources that are shared across international borders. According Frank Turyatunga (1995), transboundary issues are those that require regional or bilateral strategies to address them. According to him, these issues can only be addresses if both or all the countries involved adopt similar measures at the same time. Transboundary natural resources include a wide of range of resources such as: water, oceans, rivers, wildlife, protected areas and rangelands for livestock. The concept is justified by the theory of common property and Hardins’ tragedy of the commons. This is because based on these there exists a strong need for formal management of transboundary resources that are often analogous to common property goods. This is because Hardins’ tragedy of the commons theory holds that resources that are not privately owned or controlled are susceptible to over exploitation. This is because individual resource users strive to gain the full beneficial but in reality only end up gaining a portion of the costs of over use. The individual resource users based on this notion will thus continue using the resource even though the collective rate of resource use becomes unsustainable.

Natural Resources and Government Responsiveness

Politics, Philosophy, and Economics, 2015

Pogge (2008) and Wenar (2008) have recently argued that we are responsible for the persistence of the so-called “resource curse”. But their analyses are limited in important ways. I trace these limitations to their undue focus on the ways in which the international rules governing resource transactions undermine government accountability. To overcome the shortcomings of Pogge’s and Wenar’s analyses, I propose a normative framework organized around the social value of government responsiveness and discuss the implications of adopting this framework for future normative assessment of the resource curse and our relationships to it.

The Management of Public Natural Resource Wealth

As improved but often more environmentally-obtrusive technologies such as hydraulic fracturing facilitate the extraction of billions of dollars in natural resource wealth, more states are now faced with a welcome but exceedingly complex set of problems: Who should benefit from natural resources extracted from public lands? If the state retains much of this wealth in the form of tax receipts, how should these funds be spent? What do states owe to the communities from which these resources were extracted? What do states owe to future generations? While these are questions of first impression for a few, fortunate states, a number of states have been trying to address these issues for decades, and have enacted a variety of responses that have crucial implications for the states, their citizens, and their natural environments. This article proceeds by providing in Part I historical background on the crucial legal developments which allowed state public natural resource funds to develop. In Part II, the article turns to the first of the two central questions by introducing the principal policy justifications of state public natural resource funds through a review of the stated objectives of the funds, the funds’ governance and distributions mechanisms, the role the funds play in state policy making and budgeting, and the aspects of federalism implicated by the state funds. Part III then analyzes the operations of the funds in light of the policy justifications identified in the article. The article concludes by showing how governance weaknesses often limit the effectiveness of funds in achieving their policy goals, and suggests ways in which states can create appropriate legal and governance structures to enhance their funds’ effectiveness.

Natural Resources and State Fragility

2009

Understanding and Protecting Natural Resources

Duke Environmental Law Policy Forum, 2006

Sustainable Exploitation of Natural Resources and National Security

2015

Although the presence of natural resources on a country’s territory does not by itself lead to conflict, in specific situations this may constitute an aggravating factor for the risks pertaining to a country’s national security and long term development. The aim of this article is to outline the links and interactions between the availability of natural resources, their sustainable exploitation and a country’s national security and stability. The topic of the economics of conflict has generated a growing interest in the last 20 years, given the changing nature of the modern conflicts and their underlying economic factors. Some of these conflicts have been shown to be sustained, if not generated, by the availability of lucrative natural resources, leading to their classification as “resource wars”. Following the analysis of the influencing factors, a conclusion can be drawn regarding the need for the countries relying for their economic development solely on the exploitation of natur...

THE MANAGEMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES: AN OVERVIEW AND RESEARCH AGENDA

Our intention is to inspire management scholars to take up the “grand challenge” to provide strategic and managerial insights in conversations and debates that have so far been held by policymakers, economists, natural scientists, and engineers. As organizations’ objectives can diverge from those of governments, citizens, and stakeholders, the interplay between corporate decisions, institutional and regulatory actions, societal pressures, and important externalities of extractive processes provides an exciting context for theoretical and empirical research. We provide examples of how natural resource scarcity is challenging businesses, governments, and industries at large to innovate technologies and business models, compete in natural resource markets, and collaborate across industrial, national, and cultural boundaries.

NOT ANOTHER NEXUS? CRITICAL THINKING ON THE NEW SECURITY CONVERGENCE IN ENERGY, FOOD, CLIMATE AND WATER

In recent years, the notion of the nexus has gained immense traction in the domain of natural resource governance. It has captured high interest across academic, policy and popular debates, and has become the defining vocabulary to understand the interlinkages between land, water, food and climate. Driven by the alarmist rhetoric of uncertainty and scarcity, the nexus thinking is often couched in the language of security. This paper focuses on critical perspectives on the securitization of water, land, food, energy and climate change debates and the implications of the nexus for policy making and natural resources management. What are the drivers of this nexus re-thinking? Who is driving this debate of the nexus and to what ends? What do these debates tell us about the character of the development ‘industry’ and the political, ideological and institutional logics operating within it? What are the challenges of this nexus formulation, what spaces may open up for addressing issues of equality and justice? In October 2012, the STEPS Centre and SOAS organised a colloquium that set out to explore and address some of these questions. This paper draws on the critical insights from this meeting and explores some of the fundamental ways to unpack the nexus formulation and address the challenges therein.

Conflicts over Natural Resources and the Environment: Economics and Security

This chapter discusses the security issues and conflicts (both external and internal) over natural resources and the environment in East and Southeast Asia. The first section briefly discusses the resources of the region. A map locates some of the natural resources discussed. The second section deals with the conflicts related to the use and control of natural resources in the region. The nature and the magnitude of the conflicts between and within countries are dealt with. The third section discusses the responses and possible remedial action for these conflicts and the fourth section concludes the chapter.

Natural resource protection on buffer lands: integrating resource evaluation and economics

Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 2007