Lecture 04 NATURAL RESOURCE PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT

1. Lecture 04NATURAL RESOURCE PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT Dr. Aneel SALMAN Department of Management Sciences COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Islamabad

2. Recap Lecture 03 • Importance of NRM • Development and NRM • Concept of Planning • Concept of Management • Need for Management and Planning • Sustainability and environmental appropriateness

3. How to achieve sustainable development? • To achieve a sustainable development at least two requirements should be considered: • to address also intragenerational equity issues. People who don't have enough food today will be less concerned about the needs of future generations

4. How to achieve sustainable development? • to develop environmental knowledge and skills to allow for an economically sustainable utilization of resources. • For instance, a ban on the use of forests should not be imposed: instead, a sustainable forest management concept should be elaborated in cooperation with the population. • A multitude of forest products (such as herbs and honey) can be used sustainably by the population for the satisfaction of their needs and for income generation . • The UN proclaimed ‘Education for a sustainable development’ as a UN decade from 2005-2015.

5. Realization of Integrated Natural Resource Management • An integrated resource management and planning refers to modern ecosystem management, emphasizing the management of systems rather than of individual components of the system. • It emerged from the increasing realization that an isolated resource management, which used to be prevalent, has not been successful.

6. Realization of Integrated Natural Resource Management • This can be attributed to the non-consideration of the interactions of the individual resources, the linkages between these resources and other physical and human components of the ecosystem (see interactions of geospheres) and thus of the impacts of management actions imposed on one resource on the other components and processes within the ecosystem

8. In integrated resource management, by contrast, the ecosystem is managed as one entity. All components of and processes within the ecosystem are considered, as well as the interactions between them. This includes humans and their activities as well as the effects of their resource use on the system.

9. The following elements have thus to be integrated • the different components of the ecosystem including the population with their different interests, values and perspectives as well as their activities • the different disciplines dealing with the individual spheres • the various governmental departments, institutions and organizations that are responsible for the individual domains • the various tasks and activities

10. Alongside this meaning, the term integrated is also often used to refer to the integration of goals • Several goals are to be strived for simultaneously, e.g. a sustainable natural resource management and a sustainable rural development.

11. Challenges for planners and managers • Natural resource planners and managers as well as rural development planners are faced with varied and frequently interconnected challenges

12. Change • In our natural and human systems more or less rapid changes are always occurring. • Many of these changes are triggered by human activities. • First, planners and managers have to consider these possible changes in their decision-making. The plans have to be flexible. • Second, planners and managers have to perceive actual changes and adapt their plans and management accordingly.

13. Complexity • The interdependence of natural systems and the ramifications of interactions of human activity with the natural environment are complex. • Planners and managers have to understand the different components, processes, and their interactions very well to develop sustainable management and development strategies for the specific system

14. Uncertainty • Due to the complexity and changes, planners and managers do not have complete information about all factors influencing the decision. • Nevertheless, they have to make decisions despite their lack of information about the ecosystem for which their decisions have consequences.

15. Conflict • Different, and often conflicting, values and perspectives are usually involved in resource allocation and use decision. • Planners and managers are often faced with conflict situations and have to recognize and mediate between the conflicting sides. • This is associated with the intergenerational and intragenerational equity implied in the term sustainability

16. How to plan • Planning may proceed in several ways. • One agency may be responsible for leading and controlling the planning process without involvement of the population. • In contrast, an elected planning committee representing all different interests and perspectives within the community may be responsible for planning.

17. How to plan • Also, the analyses applied may be mainly quantitative or qualitative. • Planning models describe these different kinds of planning.   • Planning also varies regarding the unit for which planning is carried out (planning unit).

18. Planning Models • Planning models describe how planning may proceed. • Several models have been developed over the past decades. • Each reflects different values and assumptions about the nature of the world for which planning is done and about the role of the planner.

19. Planning Models • Two important ones for natural resource management and development are: • Comprehensive rational planning • Transactive planning • Note how they differ concerning the involvement of the local population in the planning process. • It is increasingly recognised that participative ways of planning are essential for natural resource management and rural development.

20. A model that explicitly considers uncertainty in prognoses about reactions of systems and limited knowledge of the planner – two challenges the planner is faced with - is adaptive planning. • New information and insights are integrated quickly and continuously in the planning process, and management is adjusted correspondingly.

21. Comprehensive rational planning • Comprehensive rational (synoptic) planning was for a long time the predominant planning model. • It is based on instrumental rationality when analyzing and making decisions (goal-rational) • Central assumptions: • There is always a right or wrong way of management, problem solving or development. In a positivistic view this model assumes that it is possible to find this best way, the best solution to all planning issues.

22. Central Assumptions • The environment is controllable by using scientific knowledge and modern technologies (belief in progress). • There is a common public interest. • Change has to be engineered from the top.

23. Assumptions and role of the planner • The planner is considered as a ‘homo economicus’. If he has collected and analyzed all necessary data his scientific knowledge and experience enables him to • identify the common public interest • identify all solution options • evaluate them against specific criteria (especially economic ones) • choose the best solution to all planning issues (benefit maximiser)

24. Thus, the planner is considered to be the expert capable to cope with the complexity of the world by using special techniques and technology to solve the relevant problems. • Role of the population • There is virtually no role designated for the people affected by planning.

25. Planning process • Planning is carried out in a centralistic way. • The planning process consists of six successive steps These steps are connected by feedback loops. They create the possibility to incorporate changes into planning as a result of new information or experiences. • Several modelling and analysing techniques are used, especially quantitative analyses. •  Thus, planning is considered as a scientific-technical process without any involvement of the public.

26. Criticism • undesirable ethical effects (planning as an objective activity without participation of the population on whom objectives and measures are imposed top-down cannot be considered ethically correct) • undesirable environmental effects or no successful results (as local knowledge and practices are not incorporated in planning and management, the measures are not adapted to the specific conditions, the population does not support the measures ordered from the top, and no inter-jurisdictional cooperation is intended in this planning model)

27. Criticism • doubts on objectivity and rationality (data are not always available and difficult to analyze, nor are the attributes of the planner always made known) • In reaction to the critics, many alternative planning models were developed, for example transactive planning.

28. Transactive planning • Transactiveplanning is one alternative to comprehensive rational planning. The transactive planning model is based on communicative rationality. This type of rationality is based on human communication and dialogue between planners and the people affected by planning.