GEOGRAPHY 454

1. GEOGRAPHY 454 Introduction to Resource Management: The Nature of Resources, and Context Issues

2. What Are ‘Natural Resources’? • An author named Zimmerman has suggested that the environment or parts of it are not resources until they are considered to be capable of fulfilling human needs. Until then, they are merely “neutral stuff.” That means that, from the perspective of culture, they are subjective. Examples? • In this view, resources are dynamic – becoming available to people through increased knowledge and expanded technology, as well as changing individual and societal objectives.

3. Notions of ‘Resources’ Are Culture-Bound • According to Daniel Botkin our society views “ecological systems… as though they were… machines, full of gears and wheels, for which our managerial goal is steady-state operation.” Dan Williams, researcher for the U.S. Forestry Service, says that our paradigm of environmental management has been one of reducing places to a collection of parts or resources.The key characteristics of our view of nature has been: •that nature is there for our benefit (anthropocentrism); •that nature is just “neutral stuff,” rather than being seen as sacred; •that we can extract resources one at a time without having to worry about the impacts on other resources or parts of the ecosystem or biosphere, and that environmental cause-effect relationships are linear and predictable [see video andpine bark beetle information]. In the past, we have also assumed that resources were limitless.

4. Different Views of Nature • It has not always been so, even in European society. As Carolyn Merchant notes, “The cosmos of the Renaissance world was a living organism. A commonly used analogy was that between the female’s reproductive and nurturing capacity and the mother earth’s ability to give birth to stones and metals within ‘her’ womb through marriage with the sun. For most traditional cultures, minerals and metals ripened in the uterus of the Earth Mother, mines were compared to her vagina, and metallurgy was the human hastening of the birth of the living metal in the artificial womb of the furnace…. The image of the earth as a living organism and nurturing mother served as a cultural constraint restricting the actions of human beings. One does not readily slay a mother, dig into her entrails for gold, or mutilate her body.”

5. Different Views of Nature • Smoholla of the Columbian Basin tribes was quoted in the mid-1800s as saying: “You ask me to plow the ground! Shall I take a knife and tear my mother’s breast? Then when I die she will not take me to her bosom to rest. You ask me to dig for stone! Shall I dig under her skin for her bones? Then when I die I cannot enter her body to be born again. You ask me to cut grass and make hay and sell it, and be rich like white men! But how dare I cut off my mother’s hair?” Nowadays, we can hardly fathom such a perspective.

6. Different Ways of Conceptualizing Land (and Water) that Lead to Conflict • Concept Characteristics • Commodity viewing land mainly for its commercial value; • Resource viewing land as capable of yielding an income or economic or social benefit over a longer time frame (e.g. good farmland); • Environment as an amenity or pleasant view; • Ecosystem as an ideally healthy community of organisms and organic and inorganic elements and processes; • Homeland as a place where people have a sense of roots and community, and cultural attachment; • Bioregion where the ecosystem and homeland concepts are blended .

7. Resource Analysis vs. Management • As resource analysts, geographers seek to understand the fundamental characteristics of natural resources and the processes through which they are, could be, and should be allocated and utilized. • By contrast, resource managers make the actual decisions concerning policy or practice in terms of how resources are allocated and under what conditions or arrangements they may be developed.Timothy O’Reardon has said that: Resource management “may be defined as a process of decision making whereby resources are allocated over space and time according to the needs, aspirations, and desires of [humans] within the framework of [their] technological inventiveness, [their] political and social institutions, and [their] legal and administrative arrangements. Resource management should be visualized as a conscious process of decision involving judgement, preference and commitment, whereby certain desired resource outputs are sought from certain perceived resource combinations through the choice among various managerial, technological, technical and administrative alternatives.”

8. Resource Development • Resource development, by contrast, “represents the actual exploitation or use of a resource during the transformation of ‘neutral stuff’ into a commodity or service to serve human needs and aspirations” (Bruce Mitchell). • These roles overlap somewhat, but it is useful to distinguish amongst them. They are usually fulfilled by different people. • These three groups deal with resources from the perspective of sectors (forests, wildlife, agriculture, minerals), topics (demand, supply, quality), problems (carrying capacity, public involvement, environmental assessment), or issues (conflicts amongst different users of a resource).

9. Other Dimensions Pertaining to Resources • Analysts and managers also deal with resources from a variety of perspectives (biophysical, economic, social, political, legal, institutional, and technological). They deal with them at a variety of spatial scales (local, regional, national, and international), and in time periods (past, present, and future). • Policy making for resources tends to go through four stages: 1)identification of a significant problem; 2)formulation of a policy and attempts to solve a problem; 3)implementation of a policy, and monitoring of the effects of a policy once implemented. For instance, with the pine beetle epidemic, we are between Stages 1 and 2. [See also alternative formulation of an “issue attention cycle” on pp. 5 & 6 of the textbook.] • Geographers will tend to play the roles of internal adviser, external adviser, consultant, or critic in these processes.

10. Context Issues for Resource Management • Canada is a federal system, where Canada owns the land north of 60° (as well as some national parks), and has legislative authority over interprovincial trade and over resources on and under the coastal seabeds. Provinces own all land not under private ownership. In BC, this amounts to well over 80% of the province. • Municipalities are creatures of the province, and have increasing responsibilities for environmental management – both because of the growing interest in sustainable land use, and because of off-loading by senior governments.

11. Context Issues for Resource Management (cont’d) • First Nations are also a very important part of the resource management equation. Many FNs ceded land through treaties under duress during the colonial period, but retained rights of land and resource use. In practice, these rights have tended to be interpreted narrowly by “white” governments and courts. • The 1982 repatriated Constitution Act enshrined aboriginal rights and court cases before and since (involving the Musqueam, Nisga’a, and others) have expanded the purview of such rights. In BC, with the exception of some Vancouver Island treaties negotiated by James Douglas, no treaties were negotiated. The colonials just took over.

12. Context Issues for Resource Management (cont’d) • The current treaty process is complicated by lack of political will, and by the fact that the federal government has the money and the provinces have the land. They have trouble getting their act together. Many FNs fear that, if and when they do get their lands back, they will be stripped of resources. Whether under treaty or not, First Nations want a stronger role in resource management decision-making. • In addition to governments and First Nations, there are, of course, the private sector organizations involved in extracting resources. And then there are what are called “third sector” or “civil society” organizations.

13. Context Issues for Resource Management (cont’d) • Mitchell divides these into three categories: •promoters •conservationists and environmentalists, and •technologists (those committed to good management). • In addition to these interests and perspectives, there are a variety of regional perspectives: the Atlantic communities that want to maintain their historic settlements in the face of the cod fishery collapse; the conflict of Alberta and Ontario over energy prices; the threats to Saskatchewan and Alberta over grain and cattle exports vis-à-vis the United States; and the softwood lumber issue for BC.

14. Context Issues for Resource Management (cont’d) • These regional differences are well-exemplified by the provincial and territorial conflicts over the Kyoto Protocol [see pp. 4-5 of the textbook]. • Global and regional trends and pressures, both environ-mental and economic are forcing a re-appraisal of resource management approaches. Environmental issues include global warming, pine beetle, fire outbreaks, environ-mentally motivated consumer boycotts of fur and forest products, the spread of invasive species, and depletion of resources. Economic issues include the trend towards “free trade,” ongoing protectionism, changing demand levels for resources, and changes in technology, etc.

15. Four Types of Conflict • Cognitive conflict- Different understandings of a situation (including of the significance of land as per the ‘6 concepts’ discussed earlier). • Conflict of values- Different views re how to weight competing values (e.g. jobs vs. environment). • Conflict of interests- How to distribute benefits and costs; who pays? • Behavioural conflict-Do people have a history of dislike and mistrust?

16. Four Types of Uncertainty • Risk- Knowing the odds. • Uncertainty- Do not know the odds; may know key variables and their parameters. • Ignorance- Do not even know what we should know or what questions we should be asking. [Who could have predicted the pine beetle or zebra mussel infestations?] • Indeterminacy-Causal chains or networks are open. Understanding not possible. • These have led to the formulation of the precautionaryprinciple – don’t do anything that could cause serious consequences that can’t be undone later on.

17. Influence of Sustainable Development Reports and Meetings • These you can you review on your own, but the milestones have been: •the Brundtland Report [Our Common Future] (1987); •the Earth Summit and Rio Declaration (1992); •the Johannesburg Summit and the resulting Plan of Implementation (2002). • The Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change (1997) is also significant. It was ratified by Canada in 2002.