Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
large enough to sustain the costs of management and still provide adequate
returns to users. This requirement needs to be explicitly addressed, rather than
assuming that once the resource is being sustainably harvested, all will be well.
●
Even without explicit effort control,
legalisation
of resource use, bringing an
informal trade into the formal economy, can be useful if it leads to recognition
of the true value of the resource by government and users. Once a trade is in
the formal economy it can be taxed and regulated. However, the legal use may
mask continuing unregulated use, and so unless enforcement is effective,
legalisation does not take management any further forward.
●
Correct
ownership and control
of the resource are vital. Users must feel secu-
rity of tenure, to ensure that they buy into the need for sustainable use for the
future. Managers must have the power to act if use appears unsustainable.
●
The resource and the institutional framework need quite
specific characteris-
tics
if regulated resource use is to work. For example, particularly suitable
resources are resilient so they can withstand high levels of use, have a relatively
high value/volume ratio, are non-perishable and have an accessible market
(Salafsky
et al
. 1993; Box 4.6).
The
framework for analysis
depends on whether you are looking from the man-
ager's or the user's perspective. From the manager's perspective, the issue is what the
social optimum is (i.e. what is best for society), and how best we should get there.
Bio-economics provides the foundation for this analysis; see Cochrane (2002).
However, in conservation, the perspective of the natural resource manager is not
always entirely appropriate. Rather than being a commercial industry, many uses
that are of conservation concern are informal and culturally embedded. Hence
some of the other frameworks listed in Table 3.1, which are focussed on the user,
are also useful.
One of the main
issues
is that conserving biodiversity through sanctioning the
direct use of the endangered resource can be controversial and potentially risky.
There is a risk to the species if the management fails to reduce use to a sustainable
level, and a public relations risk to the implementer, regardless of the potential
benefits of the scheme. Every time that the parties to CITES meet, there is a row
about the ivory trade, which has little to do with the sustainability of use, and much
more to do with opposing ethical perspectives on whether it is acceptable to kill
elephants. This is clearly demonstrated in the press releases put out by the Born Free
Foundation and the International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation
when the ivory issue was discussed at the 2002 CITES meeting, entitled respectively
'Stop the slaughter: ban the bloody ivory trade' and 'Sustainable hunting: an instru-
ment for species protection and to fight poverty' (Born Free Foundation 2002;
CIC 2002). IUCN—the World Conservation Union—has adopted a policy state-
ment on the sustainable use of wildlife, which has also attracted substantial debate
(IUCN 2000).
Another concern is that by taking a use-based perspective, we may lose sight of
the importance of other societal values for conservation. For example, Oates
