The Role of Law in Natural Resource Management

Why is it that the management of natural resources, although rational and well meaning, has so far very much resembled a "bull in a china shop"? Governments and organizations have responded to increasing pressure on scarce natural resources by creating a multiplicity of, and occasionally conflicting, rules. In the resulting confusion, policy objectives are never realized. Contributors to The Role of Law in Natural Resource Management investigate these responses and ask questions designed to illuminate the real complexity of the natural resource arena. To illustrate that preference for private property over common property is a core problem in both industrialized and developing countries, the editors have assembled case studies from both Western and non-Western countries. The contributors to this volume cover classic topics such as the managment of pasture in the colonial and post-colonial Sahel and the fisheries in the eastern United States and Canada. They go beyond these to the management of the woodlot and dairy industries in Canada, irrigation water in Nepal and Bali and the privatization of ejido lands in Mexico.