Social Assessment in Natural Resource Management Institutions

[Extract] Dawning recognition that the Earth is a finite sphere rather than the infinite plane implied by standard economics texts, coupled with (and/or spawned by) degradation and depletion of natural resources, has led to increased focus on environmental issues and resource management over the last thirty years. However the disciplines that discovered the environment in the seventies and eighties were quick to reduce it to constituent parts land, water, vegetation, air, wildlife - and to institutionalise this disintegration. Further, management of land, or water, or any other 'resource' was conceived as a technical, biophysical challenge, for which there was a 'right' way reflected in the application of particular technologies that merely needed to be 'transferred' from experts to passive, receptive practitioners. To the extent that the environment was conceived to be a system, people were assumed to be external to it. Development of resources was implicitly assumed to be a good thing. But understanding resource management is not just about soil science or biology or hydrology or agronomy, it is fundamentally about understanding how people live in, interact with, and manage natural resources. Landscapes are socially constructed. Resource management is a social process, involving values, choices and trade-offs. Environmental issues are people issues.

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