Introduction - Conflicts Over Natural Resources in the Global South - page 1

Introduction
Maarten Bavinck, Erik Mostert & Lorenzo Pellegrini
Abstract This chapter provides an introduction to the volume on conflicts over
natural resources in the Global South and situates the various contributions made.
The authors note that such conflicts frequently involve poor, mainly rural people who
are struggling to maintain access to the resources on which they depend for a living.
The volume is concerned mainly with conceptual approaches to the issue of conflict.
Given the diversity of conflict and cooperation dynamics and their relation with natural
resources, the authors argue that general causal theories are problematic. Rather than
aiming for grand explanations, the volume therefore is aimed to realise what Merton
(1949) has termed 'middle-range theory'.
Keywords Natural resources, conflict, cooperation, Global South, poverty, gover-
nance.
1.1 PRELIMINARY REMARKS
This topic is primarily about the conflicts that often characterise the exploitation of
natural resources. The focus is on poor, mainly rural, people and their struggles to
maintain access to the resources on which they depend for a living, such as water,
land, agriculture, fisheries and minerals. It is about the troubles that prevail and the
ways in which people cooperate to resolve them, for better or worse.
Although poverty is a universal phenomenon, not limited to specific parts of the
world (CIESIN 2006), it is the defining feature of the region known as the Global
South. The countries that belong to the Global South are mostly located in Africa,
Asia and Latin America, and a large part of their populations live in rural areas and
is engaged in the primary sector. This means that they rely directly on the natural
environment for their livelihood.
The effects of human development on the natural environment have been analysed
globally in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) (2005). This report points to
the human reliance on manifold ecosystem services. The present volume concentrates