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ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCESR.M. CorobovThe independent researcher, Chisinau, MoldovaУстойчивый менеджмент окружающей среды имеет общие черты с другими секторами общественного управления, особенно стеми, что управляют общими ресурсами. Сложность идентификации реальных проблем окружающей среды обусловлена теснотойсвязи между социальными системами, охватывающими многочисленных субъектов действия, и природными системами (ресурсами).Обсуждаются методологические подходы управления природными ресурсами в определенных институционных рамках и через определенныйинституционный режим.Environmental management has similarities with othersectors of public planning, especially those managing acommon resource. The absence of adequate prices, themultitude of claims to scarce resources and the complexityof environmental problems are similar to the problemsencountered in developmental decision-making. Thus,tools used in the development planning can be suitablyadapted to incorporate environmental effects into thedecision-making and planning process (Noorbakhsh andRanjan, 1999).In setting the real environmental problems, a complexityderives from the interactions between the humansystems, comprising numerous actors and activities,and the natural systems (resources) that are mediatedby interacting resource regimes (Briassoulis, 2004). It iswidely accepted that management of natural resourcesshould aim to benefit all resource users, as equitably aspossible, within the constraint of environmental, financial,institutional, and so on sustainability (Cain et al., 1999).However, in practice, the policies of natural resourcemanagement are not working very well, and currentpatterns and levels of their use are not sustainable.Applying the seemingly “best practices” too often leadsto unintended and unwanted outcomes, and hundreds ofdiverse socio-ecological systems have failed to achievetheir goals with resulting social disruption and a decline inthe resource base (Millennium Assessment, 2005).Walker (2006) explains this situation by the factthat in most cases, even when intentions are good, anddifferent objective local or national factors are neglected,the inappropriate resource use policies and managementactivities stem from inappropriate ‘mental models’. Peopleuse and modify nature, proceeding from their notions ofhow human systems and nature work. These mentalmodels, or paradigms, often either ignore or simplifyinappropriately the vital aspects of the ways in which realworld systems work actually. The ruling mental modelsfor resource use and development, still based on thedeterministic ‘command-and-control philosophy’ that viewsthe natural systems as highly controllable, mark the earlyapproaches to natural resource management. Prevalenceof these models over the world can be explained by fourflawed assumptions (Walker, 2006):– A focus on average conditions, rather than onextreme events, the fixed and short-time frames andfixed spatial scales, rather than multiple nested scales;– A belief that problems from different sectors do notinteract in the systems, while interacting sectors are akey feature of systems’ dynamics;– An expectation that change will be incrementaland linear, when it is frequently non-linear and oftenlurching;– An assumption that getting the system into, andthen keeping it in, some particular state will maximiseyield from the resource base, is indefinitely. It is anunattainable goal, and there is no sustainable “optimal”state – be it an ecosystem, a social system, or the world.Walker (2006, p. 79) concluded that “Partial solutionsto problems in complex social-ecological systems do notwork for very long”, and proposed an alternative approachassuming that social-ecological systems behave ascomplex adaptive systems with alternate attractors,or alternate system regimes. Three attributes of thesesystems – resilience, adaptability and transformability– determine the topology of the system’s stability and,therefore, the likelihood of regime shifts. Governance andmanagement of resilience is therefore concerned withlearning how to avoid (or to cross) thresholds betweenalternate regimes and how to influence the positions ofthe thresholds.“Management of natural resources is generallyachieved by a combination of experience, intuition, trial,error and effort. This may be successful but is not a basisfor effective long-term resource management systems,which are essential to improved management practice”,– stated Cain et al (1999, p. 132). Experience has shownthat a multi-objective management approach, termedIntegrated Natural Resource Management (Batchelor,1995), is needed and that it should, ideally, comprisesthree components:– the formulation of management strategies;– the implementation of the strategies and monitoringprocedures to assess whether the impacts are thoseintended;– the corresponding adaptation of the strategies.It is also necessary to keep in mind that resourcemanagement operates in the stochastic environment. Inthe interpretation of Batabyal and Beladi (2006) this meansthat state of a managed resource at any particular point intime is a function not only of the actions undertaken by amanager, but also of unpredictable environmental factorslike droughts, fires, or predators. As a result, even if amanager believes that taken actions ensure that a resourcedoes not hit any of the crisis states, it may still do so.The use of threatened natural resources can beinfluenced and managed within a certain InstitutionalFramework or through Institutional Resource Regime.Varone et al. (2002, p. 78) understand theInstitutional Resource Regime. as “… a combinationof formal property (ownership), disposition and userights, and the prominent elements of resource-specificprotection and exploitation policies the design of whichcomprises specific aims with respect to preservationand use, the intervention instruments, institutional actorarrangements, etc”. The ‘disposition rights’ are consideredas the possibility for a formal owner to freely ‘dispose’the resource or its part, for example, to sell, to give, torent, and so on. Disposition rights refer also to the rightto transfer specific use rights or to sell the resource itselfversus existent distinguishing “the rights to own and the— 109 —