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Natural Resource Management
Management of natural resources
through people’s participation is gradually being accepted as an effective
strategy to arrest and reverse the alarming rate of resource degradation and
its economic and environmental consequences.
The important factors which have contributed to this awareness include the
increasing realisation concerning the limitations of the State interventions
in managing local resources without involving local communities; the
rediscovery of the rationale and mechanisms behind traditional systems of
common property resources management; advocacy by grassroots non-government
organisations for local resource management and the successful experiences of
recent initiatives involving approaches to development and management of
natural resources through community forestry programmes, community irrigation
systems, user group-managed pasture development, joint management of forests
in Asia and other parts of the developed world.
These recent initiatives however remained country specific and in many
instances went undocumented. This obstructs both the replication of these
successes as well as the evolution of mechanisms which could help in
collective thinking to guide future work related to people-centred,
participatory management of natural resources.
To address the lacuna ICIMOD -- whose mandate is to help promote the
development of an economically and environmentally sound mountain ecosystem
and to improve the living standards of mountain populations in the Hindu Kush
Himalayas -- has established a programme which will aim to encourage
participatory natural resource management in the countries of Afghanistan,
Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan.
For more information contact Anupam Bhatia, Regional Coordinator,
Participatory Natural Resource Management Programme, ICIMOD, GPO Box 3226,
Kathmandu, Nepal.
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Ecosystem Health |
1.
Environment is not understood well in development and
there exists a need to develop a more integrated approach.
2.
Ecosystems health is an integrated and useful framework
principle for understanding the integral relationship between people and
nature, however there are few existing tools of analysis.
3.
Human health, which includes both the physiological and
psychological dimensions is a very effective indicator of the wealth of
the environment.
4.
Health, however, is largely understood and related with
manifested diseases in a restricted sense and needs to be equated with
overall well-being of people, their physical, mental and social health. |
5.
Technology needs to be re-oriented to meet common people’s needs and
aspirations.
6.
There is a need for an analytical framework that can
adequately address the issue of environmental quality and equity.
7.
Ecosystem’s decline needs to be perceived more in terms
of the telling effect on people’s health and well being than on natural
environment per se.
8. In the light of
globalisation of environmental issues that resulted in the International
Earth Summit, South Countries need to have a clear-cut perspective on
environment and development and its effect on the needs and aspirations
of our people.
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An extract from the
highlights of the plenary session from the report " Ecosystems Health ".
For details contact South-South Solidarity, Safdarjung Development Area,
New Delhi - 110016 |
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