Natural Resource Management

Natural resource Management:

• The management of natural resource is a collective action problem
• It needs diverse resources users
• governments, farmers, business, communities, and non-governmental organization to integrate their activities.

Natural Resource Management

• This integration will help to achieve sustainable resource management

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• Sustainable natural resource management require knowledge from sciences, from local experience as well as from indigenous people

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Why Natural resource Management?

• All things we use and consume are obtained from natural resources.
• Due to increase in population, industrialization and urbanization the demand for natural resources is increasing and their availability is limited.
• The overexploitation leads to several critical consequences which put the future plants, animals and human society in a serious risk.

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Why Natural resource Management?

• So there is a need for proper management of natural resources in order to:
• Maintain ecological balance for supporting life.
• Preserve different kinds of species (biodiversity).
• Make the resources available for present and future generation.
• Ensure the survival of human race.

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The proper management of natural resources consists of:

• Careful use of resources so that it last not only for present but also for the future generation.
• Long term planning on the natural resources so that it last not only for the present but also for the future generations
• The exploitation of natural resources should not be for the benefit of a few people, but should be distributed equally for all.
• While extracting and using natural resources we should also plan for safe disposal of wastes so that no damage is caused to the environment.

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Concepts in Natural Resources

• Management: that focuses on utilizing a natural resources while restoring it e.g the soil manuring
• Preservation: An attempt to prevent the use of a natural resource.
• Aim is to “preserve” or keep it intact as it is or was.
• It is only used in some areas which are highly degraded. E.g the HADO

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Concepts in Natural Resources

• Conservation: An attempt to use a natural resource in a way to minimize degradation.
• Aim is to maintain the resource in as good condition as possible. It means utilizing resources while recognizing the need of leaving it to recover/regenerate

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• Environment: All of the physical surroundings of a species.
• Or the sum of living things that surround an organism or group of organism.

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• Ecology: Study of the complex relationships among living things and their environment

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Concepts in Natural Resources

• Ecosystem: Any partially self-contained environmental and living thing.
• Or is the ecological unit consisting of biotic factors (living) and abiotic factors (non-living) in a specific area. E.g forest, grassland, aquatic, etc.
• Carrying Capacity: The ability of an ecosystem to provide food and shelter for a given population.

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Concepts in Natural Resources

• Institutions: are rules of game that facilitate, guide and control the behavior of individual or group (Ostrom, 2013).
• define the rights and rule of the resource use, determine access by the group of people, member of organization or individuals in a community (Salamanca, 2001).

Concepts in Natural Resources

• Involve policies and objectives; laws, rules and regulations; organization, bylaws and core values; incentive mechanisms; accountability mechanisms as well as norms, traditions, practices and customs (Bandaragoda, 2000)

Principles of NRM

• We will look at ecological Principle of NRM
• It include all principles that are related to land use and the resources found on it
• Human activities have impact on land hence changes on resources
• This change/transformation affects the ecological systems and physical systems.

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Principles of NRM

• Ecological Principles are usually used in planning for Natural resources management in reducing the conflicting consequences resulting from land use and resources exploitation.
• The ecological principles help us to understand the limitations and potentials offered by the environment hence proper planning for natural resources management.

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Principles of NRM

• The ecological Principles of Natural Resources Management include:
1. Time Principle
2. Species principle
3. Place Principle
4. Disturbance Principle
5. Landscape Principle

Time Principle

• Ecological processes function at many time scales, some long, some short; and ecosystems change through time
• Ecosystem change through time, from season to season and year to year in response to variations in weather and long term succession changes.
• When planning for management and use on resources we need to consider diverse time scale which ecosystem pass through.

Time principle

• Implications of Time principle for land use:
1. The current composition, structure, and function of an ecological system are, in part, a consequence of historical events or conditions and current land uses may limit land use options that are available in the future.
2. The full ecological effects of human activities often are not seen for many years.

Time principle

iii. The imprint of a land use may persist on the landscape for a long time, constraining future land use for decades or centuries even after it ceases.

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iv. Long-term effects of land use or management may be difficult to predict due to variation and change in ecosystem structure and process.

- This problem is exacerbated by the tendency to overlook low-frequency ecological disturbances, such as 100-year flooding, or processes that operate over periods longer than human life spans (e.g., forest succession).

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Species Principle

• Deals with Species diversity and focal species
• Particular species and networks of interacting species have key, broad-scale ecosystem-level effects. 
• An area with many plant species is more productive and resistant to drought, pests and other stresses.
• Focal species affects ecological systems in diverse ways:

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Species principle

• Indicator species - indicate status of species, habitat +impact of stressors
• Keystone species - have grater effect than predicted
• Ecological engineers - modify fates+opportunities of other species
• Umbrella species - have large area requirement
• Link species - link energy transfer within complex food web

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Species principle

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• human activities leads to elimination of native species and promote just a few species (invasive non-nature)
• particular species has key broad scale ecosystem level effects

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Place Principle

• Local climatic, hydrologic, soil, and geomorphologic factors as well as biotic interactions strongly affect ecological processes and the abundance and distribution of species at any one place.
• Each place has its local environmental conditions- longitude and latitude, physical, chemical and edaphic factors
• these factors constrain and define resident species and processes.

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Place Principle

• only those species which are adapted to the environmental constraints will strive / fight
• Some places with unique conditions may be more important than others for conservation of the species and ecosystem they support e.g area with endemic species are always unique and need to be conserved

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Disturbance Principle

• type intensity and duration of disturbances shape the characteristics of populations, communities and ecosystems
• Disturbances are events that disrupt ecological system
• They are natural and man-induced

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Disturbance Principle

• Disturbances may lead to
• Enhancing or limiting biological diversity
• Initiating succession
• causing inputs or losses of dead organic matter and nutrients that affect productivity and habitat structure
• creating landscape patterns that influence many ecological factors

Landscape Principle

• The size, shape, and spatial relationships of land-cover types influence the dynamics of populations, communities, and ecosystems
• The kinds of organisms that can exist are limited by the sizes, shapes, and patterns of habitat across a landscape
• Small area usually have less species compared to large areas

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Landscape Principle

• Human activities such as settlement may lead to landscape fragmentation or alter land cover pattern
• Decrease in the size of habitat patches or increase of distance of habitat patches of the same type
• leads to decrease or elimination of organism population
• Also may lead to changes in ecosystem process

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Landscape principle

• The extent and pattern of habitat connectivity can affect the distribution of species by making some areas accessible and others inaccessible
• Connectivity is influenced by two factors
• Abundance and spatial arrangement of habitat
• Movement capabilities of organism

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Landscape principle

• Connectivity also varies between species depending:
• Species habitat requirement
• Sensitivity to disturbances
• Vulnerability to human-caused mortality

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• Connectivity allow organism to move in response to changing conditions

Landscape principle

• Loss of connectivity result into fragmentation

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• Human can impact connectivity and leads to fragmentation – this affect biodiversity

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• Both connectivity and fragmentation are important contributor to ecosystem change and process