Natural Resources, Energy Politics, and Environmental Consequences

Author(s):  
Markus Kröger

Life on Earth is undergoing major changes due to the converging and rapidly accelerating climate, biodiversity, pollution, and other environmental crises and emergencies. Global environmental and ecological constraints, consequences, and politics are becoming mainstream and necessary components to include in analysis across scientific fields. Over-extraction of resources in destructive ways is leading key ecosystems into states of collapse, species and habitats are being lost at record rates, and tipping points are cascading to produce a chaotic transformation. In this setting, resource extraction, in its varied forms, needs to be urgently analyzed in terms of its impacts and politics to understand, explain, transform, regulate, and govern the way natural resource sectors and actors affect the web of life. To this end, this article opens up natural resource politics, and how their unfolding has been analyzed globally and sectorially. Most of the studies related to or discussing the topic of extraction focus on the negative impacts of these projects, their developmental impacts, or the characteristics of conflicts related to extraction. Fewer studies focus on explaining what are the politics that lead to negative impacts, development, or conflicts. The studies on the politics behind extractive investment outcomes discuss the causal paths from political actions to extraction in different contexts mostly tangentially. Yet, constructivist studies by social scientists on natural resources have shown how resources and spaces of extracting resources are also created in social and political processes, which are typically international and related to existing power relations. Resources do not just exist out there, but are imagined when a part of nature is framed as a natural resource, and some areas are turned into sacrifice zones for extraction. These are places being destroyed as they do not matter to their extractors. The span of these localities has expanded over nations and subcontinents, placing us all in the sacrifice zone now, as Naomi Klein elucidates in This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate. This bibliography covers first the textbooks, followed by an assessment of the key dynamics in which resource politics are embedded, such as conflicts and developmental interventions, and their key actors: civil society, corporations, states, and global actors. Last, the particularities for different targets and sectors of extraction are assessed, including trees and forests, minerals, hydrocarbons and energy, water, and food and feed. For databases and resources, journals, and methodology of studying resource politics, please see the Oxford Bibliographies article “Politics of Extraction: Theories and New Concepts for Critical Analysis” which focuses on the key theories and organizing concepts.

Author(s):  
Neha Singh ◽  
Neena Sareen

Natural resources are important for human beings to sustain life on earth. However, continuous use of natural resources by the human beings, had affected the earth. There is need to manage our natural resources to improve the sustainability of the natural resources. Women have always come to forward to conserve and protect natural resources because they are the primary users of natural resources traditionally as well as modern. In this paper, A scale has been developed and standardized that can be used to measure the role of farm women towards natural resource management activities. The scale was developed by using the technique of “Scale Product Method” which combines the Thurston’s technique of equal appearing interval scale for selection of the items and Likert’s technique of summated rating for ascertaining the response on the scale. A total of 78 Natural Resource Management (NRM) activities were selected. Based on Scale (median) value and Q value, 72 Natural Resource Management (NRM) was selected to measure the role of farm women towards natural resource management activities. The co-efficient of reliability was calculated by the Rulon’s formula i.e. 0.81 and the content validity was observed thoroughly. The reliability and validity of the scale indicate its consistency and precision of the results. This scale can be used to measure the role of farm women in natural resource management activities.


Author(s):  
Mahyuni Mahyuni ◽  
Ismar Hamid ◽  
Muhammad Luthfi Farizan ◽  
Mona Warah ◽  
Anisa Amalia

The environmental crisis is getting worse these days, resulting in a debate about the paradigm of natural resource management to emerge. The aspiration for sustainable natural resource management is getting stronger from civil society movements and the wider community. The purpose of this research is to describe eco-populist thoughts and actions in peatland management and to strengthen the position of the eco-populist paradigm as the right paradigm in peatland management. This research is qualitative research with a case study approach, namely research conducted intensively, in detail and in-depth on a problem that is the object of research. The results of this study contribute to a fundamental-philosophical error in peatland management. Promote a sustainable perspective on peatland management based on local knowledge, reinforced by paradigmatic studies. A perspective that harmonizes ecological and human (community) interests. Not a viewpoint that ignores certain subsystems. In natural resource politics, there are at least three paradigms. First, the conservationist paradigm, which places natural resources solely for conservation. Second, the developmentalistic paradigm, which views natural resources as development assets. Third, the eco-populistic paradigm, which is a holistic perspective that humans, flora and fauna and their environment are one ecosystem. The loss of one element shakes the joints of the other component. Peat management is one of the world's highlights today. The critical issue is that climate change is linked to the destruction of peat due to unsustainable management. Until now, peatland management is still dominant with a developmentalism cum conservationist paradigm. So it is necessary to strengthen paradigmatic in sustainable peatland management.


2005 ◽  
Vol 156 (8) ◽  
pp. 264-268
Author(s):  
James J. Kennedy ◽  
Niels Elers Koch

The increasing diversity, complexity and dynamics of ecosystem values and uses over the last 50 years requires new ways for natural resource managers (foresters, wildlife biologists, etc.)to understand and relate to their professional roles and responsibilities in accommodating urban and rural ecosystem users, and managing the complimentary and conflicting interactions between them. Three stages in Western-world natural resources management are identified and analyzed, beginning with the (1) Traditional stage: natural resources first, foremost and forever, to (2) Transitional stage: natural resource management,for better or worse, involves people, to (3) Relationship stage: managing natural resources for valued people and ecosystem relationships. The impacts of these three perspectives on how natural resource managers view and respond to ecosystems,people and other life-forms is basic and can be profound.


2003 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-301 ◽  
Author(s):  
William S. Kern

In The Ultimate Resource (1981, 1996), and in many other publications over the last several decades, Julian Simon put forth controversial views regarding the connection between natural resource scarcity, population growth, and economic progress. Simon argued, in contrast to those espousing the limits to growth, that natural resources were not getting scarcer, but more abundant, and that a large and growing population was an asset rather than a liability in the pursuit of economic growth.


1970 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 204-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Curtis ◽  
John Petras

American social scientists have long been interested in community power structures, but most methodological and substantive developments in this area of research have occurred only in the past fifteen years or so. The published social science literature bearing on this topic now includes well over six hundred items written primarily by political scientists and sociologists. There have been over eighty systematic attempts to present an overall, composite description of the structure of power in particular communities; this research will be our central concern in this paper. These studies are accompanied in the literature by hundreds of critiques of methodological approaches, attempts at conceptual refinement, studies of narrower facets of community political processes, and reviews and commentaries on particular studies. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to consider the field of community power from a sociology of knowledge perspective by extending the discussion in an earlier research note, and secondly, to point to some procedural guides that seem appropriate for use in further research in this and other areas characterized by "chronic controversies."


Author(s):  
Chris Armstrong

This chapter examines a variety of views about the nature of society’s putative duty to conserve natural resources for the future, with a focus on the contested idea of sustainability. This chapter examines competing conceptions of sustainability and their implications for natural resource conservation across generations. Sustainability is a very popular concept, but there are many different positions on what might be called the “sustainability of what?” question. The chapter examines a number of competing views and shows how controversy here has informed the debate between so-called weak and strong conceptions of sustainability. It concludes with an examination of the politics of sustainability, and in particular the connections and possible tensions between goals of natural resource conservation and of global justice.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Deineha Maryna ◽  
◽  
Marinich Volodymyr ◽  

The article examines the place of Natural Resource Law and post-resource branches of law in the legal system, proposes a hierarchy of these branches and outlines the relationship between the subjects of natural resource and post-resource relations. The subject of legal regulation of Natural Resource Law is defined as qualitatively homogeneous natural resource relations, consisting of the use and reproduction of natural resources – a legally defined part of the environment that have signs of natural origin and are in ecological relationship with the environment and with each other, can be used as a source of meeting human needs. All natural resources, as well as the relationship to their use and reproduction, are closely linked. This connection will always be inseparable and reciprocal. It is established that in the system of Natural Resource Law public relations regarding the use and reproduction of certain natural resources are in fact its subsectors and provide a differentiated approach to the environmentally sound use of each of the relevant natural resources. Natural Resource Law is not a conglomeration of land, water, forest and subsoil law, but their qualitative unity based on a single nature, factors of development and the internal structure of social relations. It is concluded that neither the long history of legislation, nor a significant amount of regulations that are sources of post-resource industries, are grounds for denying the inseparable and mutual connection of post-resource branches of law with each other and with Natural Resource Law and the objective need for separation independent branch of Natural Resource Law. Keywords: Natural Resource Law, land law, water law, forest law, subsoil law, faunal law, floristic law, natural resource relations, post-resource relations, legal system, branch of law


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 28-35
Author(s):  
Budi Hasanah ◽  
Fuqoha Fuqoha ◽  
Rahmi Mulyasih ◽  
Ahmad Sururi

The potential of abundant natural resources in Gunungsari Village, Serang Regency, is still unable to improve the economic standard of life of the community, this is due to the lack of community skills and the lack of public knowledge in optimizing the potential of these natural resources into economic added value. This method of community economic empowerment through optimization of natural resource potential in Gunungsari Village, Serang Regency uses an environmental communication strategy which includes 1) Material Stage; 2) Energy Phase; 3) Information Stage, and 4) Evaluation Stage. The results of community service concluded that community economic empowerment through optimizing the potential of natural resources received a positive response and enthusiasm from the community, with the success rate of training program indicators being on an interval scale with an average value of 70% or a fairly good category. Thus it can be concluded that encouraging the skills training of the Gunungsari Village community in utilizing the natural resource potential of the papaya fruit is very important to improve the welfare of rural communities.


Scientifica ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tanyaradzwa Chigonda

Access to natural resources has changed over the years in Zimbabwe. At least three broad periods of biodiversity conservation, utilisation, and access can be identified in the country, namely, the precolonial, colonial, and postindependence periods. This paper reviews the relationships between human livelihoods and biodiversity conservation in the rural areas of Zimbabwe during these periods and is informed by an extensive review of the relevant literature. A combination of historical narrative, thematic, and content analysis was used in analysing the various documents into meaningful information addressing the objective of the study. Traditional societies in precolonial Zimbabwe had access to abundant natural resources. However, access to these resources was not uncontrolled, but was limited by traditional beliefs, taboos, and customs enforced through community leadership structures. The advent of colonialism in the late 19th century dispossessed indigenous African communities of natural resources through command-type conservation legislation. At independence in 1980, the new majority government sought to redress the natural resource ownership imbalances created during colonialism, culminating in some significant measure of devolution in natural resource management to local communities in the late 1980s, though such devolution has been criticised for being incomplete. An accelerated land reform exercise since the year 2000 has adversely affected biodiversity conservation activities in the country, including the conservation-related livelihood benefits derived from protected areas. The review paper highlights the need for a more complete devolution of natural resource ownership and management down to the grassroots levels in the communal areas, if social and ecological sustainability is to be fully realised in these areas. On the other hand, the disruption of conservation activities in the country due to the ill-planned accelerated land reform exercise that has demarcated land for arable farming in some of the protected areas should be held in check as a matter of urgency.


2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 75-96
Author(s):  
Piotr Matyjasiak

The aim of this paper is (i) to review the method of valorization of natural resources as applied in the environmental impact assessment, and (ii) to develop recommendations on how valorization expertise should be prepared in order to be comprehensive and transparent. Valorization is the proper time to carry out identi>cation of the possible negative environmental impacts and damages of a planned project. It is recommended to perform valorization due to the state (numbers) and functions (quality) of natural resources. This approach is related to the concept of environmental damage, which is defined as a measurable adverse change in a natural resource or measurable impairment of a natural resource service (which means the functions performed by a natural resource for the benefit of another natural resource or the public). Valorization of natural resources should include an assessment of potential environmental damage, including an impact on the local biodiversity, the ecological connectivity, the N2000 network, and the legally protected areas. The valorization of natural resources should be performed at the following thematic levels focusing on the role of the area under consideration due to: (1) the implementation of the objectives of protection of Nature 2000 network and its overall coherence, (2) the implementation of the objectives of protection of legally protected areas other than N2000, (3) the maintenance of the ecological connectivity in a context other than the coherence of Nature 2000 network, (4) the maintenance of species and natural habitats with favorable conservation status, (5) the conservation of species and natural habitat types that are not legally protected.


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