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A Concept of Sustainable Use of Natural Resources in Regional Development Contexts

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A Concept of Sustainable Use of Natural Resources in Regional Development Contexts A Concept of Sustainable Use of Natural Resources in Regional Development Contexts Sustainable Regional Development in Rural Africa, Part III Urs Wiesmann, 2008 (revised edition [19981]) Sustainable Regional Development in Rural Africa Part III A Concept of Sustainable Use of Natural Resources in Regional Development Contexts Urs Wiesmann CDE and NCCR North-South 2008 Revised edition [19981] Citation Wiesmann U. 2008. Sustainable Regional Development in Rural Africa, Part III: A Con- cept of Sustainable Use of Natural Resources in Regional Development Contexts. Revised edition [19981]. Bern, Switzerland: Centre for Development and Environment and NCCR North-South. Note The present publication is a revised edition of Part III of: Wiesmann U. 1998. Sustainable Regional Development in Rural Africa: Conceptual Framework and Case Studies from Kenya. African Studies 14. Bern, Switzerland: Geographica Bernensia. Cover design Extract of the heuristic structural model of sustainable resource use. (© Urs Wiesmann) Distribution The PDF version of this paper can be downloaded from: http://www.north-south.unibe.ch under “Publications” © The author and NCCR North-South Table of contents Summary 5 1. Introduction 7 2. Sustainable use of natural resources as a component of sustainable devel- 11 opment 2.1. The dimensions of sustainable development 11 2.2. The ecological dimension of sustainable development 13 2.3. Sustainable use of resources and regional development 15 3. Defining sustainable resource use and establishing scales of values 16 3.1. The problem of establishing scales of values 16 3.2. Using general and specific natural potential to establish scales of values 20 3.3. Sustainable use of natural resources in a regional context 22 4. Sustainable resource use and regional development 25 4.1. Focusing on values and impacts 25 4.2. The relevance of a regional concept to contemporary debate about sus- 28 tainability 4.3. Evaluation of sustainability and sustainable resource management: ne- 30 cessities and possibilities 5. Evaluating sustainable use of natural resources in a regional development 35 context 5.1. Basic principles of an analytical approach to evaluation 35 5.2. Selection criteria for initial evaluation of specific and globalised natural 37 potential 5.3. Selection criteria and approaches for analysing the impacts of resource 41 use 5.4. Integral indicators of sustainable resource use 43 5.5. Evaluation of sustainable resource use as an iterative process 45 5.6. The role of different actors in evaluating sustainable use of natural re- 46 sources List of figures Figure 1: Target values and impacts in the ‘magic triangle’ of sustainable devel- 12 opment Table 1: Classification of concepts showing relevant subsets of ‘nature’ and ‘re- 17 sources.’ Figure 2: A heuristic structural model of sustainable resource use in the context 26 of regional development Table 2: Steps and selection criteria used in evaluation of sustainable resource 45 use in a regional context. Summary In Part III the focus shifts from the attempt to understand dynamics (see Parts I and II) to a discussion of development aims, as development policy and practice have to be concerned with both, the processes and the aims of development. At least since UNCED 1992, this discussion has been dominated by the concept of ‘sustainable development’, about which there is broad consensus but which remains vague and therefore hardly applicable to con- crete situations. The main reasons for the low degree of operationalisation of sustainable development are that the norms necessarily linked with the aims of sustainability are not exposed to explicit socio-political debate, and neglect of the fact that the three main di- mensions of sustainability - economic, socio-cultural, and ecological - basically conflict due to their underlying dynamic interrelations. In this situation of implicit conflict the so- cio-cultural and particularly the ecological dimension of sustainable development tend to be marginalised as concrete development aims, mainly because of lack of sensitive and debatable scales of values. Against this background, and based on environmental concerns in rural Africa, the consid- erations of Part III concentrate on an attempt to operationalise the ecological dimension of sustainability through developing a concept of sustainable use of natural resources in re- gional development contexts. The starting point for these considerations is David Hume’s position that ‘what should be’ cannot be derived from ‘what is’ or ‘what will be’, or in other words, the norms and values of ecological sustainability can in principle not be de- rived from ‘nature’ as such but require socio-political valuation of ecological components. Therefore the key questions to address are: What are meaningful scales of values for eco- logical sustainability? Who establishes values in which societal context? And how can the values of future generations be anticipated? Starting with the first of these questions it is argued that ‘natural potentials’ - as opposed to terms like ‘ecological systems’ or ‘natural resources’ - refer to components of nature that a certain society considers useful or valuable at a certain point in time, and thus repre- sent meaningful, operational and debatable scales of values for ecological sustainability. Natural potentials can generally be structured into four broad categories of scales of val- ues: production-oriented, physiological, and socio-cultural potentials, as well as intrinsic ethical values of nature. However, different societies will differ in terms of the concrete values and the weight assigned to these categories. This is mainly true in development contexts, where the natural potentials as assessed by external expertise rooted in Western industrial societies, differ considerably from those of local societies, which contain e.g. indigenous knowledge and experience related to the complex land use systems. This dif- ference is highlighted by naming the first societal valuation type ‘globalised natural poten- tial’ and the latter ‘specific natural potential’. As both these types include aspects which are not present in the other, their sum constitutes a better and more meaningful anticipa- tion of future valuations than each of them separately. These considerations lead to the following definition of ecological sustainability of human activities: Resource use can be considered sustainable if it does not lead to depreciation in values associated with specific and globalised natural potentials, either within or outside a particular regional context. Through combining this focus on valuation, which is related to natural potentials, with a focus on dynamic interactions, particularly on the impacts of land use in ecological sys- tems, a dynamic concept of ecological sustainability is developed which includes an open feedback loop. This open feedback loop implies that regional self-regulation is in any case limited and that evaluation and possible intervention with regard to the degree of ecologi- cal sustainability becomes necessary. The evaluation primarily follows three steps: Initial valuation of specific and globalised natural potentials, prospective analyses of the ecologi- cal impacts of land use, and assessment of changes in the values assigned to natural poten- tial. This process must include at least three actor categories: Local actors for the valuation of specific natural potentials and for participatory steering approaches, scientific experts for the valuation of globalised natural potential, for impact analyses, and for assessment of steering approaches, and deciding actors and agencies for mediation between local and supra-regional claims, valuations and approaches. It is shown that the related negotiation process involving these three actor categories must be understood by itself as a substantial contribution to more sustainable resource use. Part III: A Concept of Sustainable Use of Natural Resources in Regional Contexts 7 1 Introduction With Part III1 of this study we leave the example of Laikipia District and return to con- ceptual considerations: In the first two parts we have dealt with the dynamics of regional development in rural Africa to obtain an increased problem-oriented understanding. This was justified by the current crisis of development policy and practice - especially as related to the environmental dimension of development (see Part I, 2.3). We have argued, howev- er, that this crisis is not only rooted in problems of understanding dynamics but also in widespread uncertainties related to development goals. With Part III we therefore shift from the attempt to understand dynamics to a discussion of these goals by focusing on ‘sustainable development’ as a key concept of current policy debate. Based on our concern regarding the environmental dimension of development (see Parts I and II), we will there- by concentrate on conceptual considerations related to the ecological aspects of sustain- ability and develop a concept of the goal of sustainable resource use in regional develop- ment contexts. In combination with the focus on dynamics, this concept will provide the basis for drafting practical approaches to key problems in the study area of Laikipia (see Part IV). The idea of ‘sustainable development’ has been at the core of conceptual thinking in the realms of development co-operation and environmental policy at least since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. ‘Sustainability’ currently has such positive connotations
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