Natural resource management refers to the management of natural resources such as land, water, soil, plants and animals, with a particular focus on how management affects the quality of life for both present and future generations (stewardship).

Natural resource management deals with managing the way in which people and natural landscapes interact. It brings together land use planning, water management, biodiversity conservation, and the future sustainability of industries like agriculture, mining, tourism, fisheries and forestry. It recognises that people and their livelihoods rely on the health and productivity of our landscapes, and their actions as stewards of the land play a critical role in maintaining this health and productivity.^[1]

Natural resource management is also congruent with the concept of sustainable development, a scientific principle that forms a basis for sustainable global land management and environmental governance to conserve and preserve natural resources.

Natural resource management specifically focuses on a scientific and technical understanding of resources and ecology and the life-supporting capacity of those resources.^[2] Environmental management is also similar to natural resource management. In academic contexts, the sociology of natural resources is closely related to, but distinct from, natural resource management.

History

The Bureau of Land Management in the United States manages America'spublic lands, totaling approximately 264 million acres (1,070,000 km2) or one-eighth of the landmass of the country.

The emphasis on sustainability can be traced back to early attempts to understand the ecological nature of North American rangelands in the late 19th century, and the resource conservation movement of the same time. This type of analysis coalesced in the 20th century with recognition that preservationist conservation strategies had not been effective in halting the decline of natural resources. A more integrated approach was implemented recognising the intertwined social, cultural, economic and political aspects of resource management. A more holistic, national and even global form evolved, from the Brundtland Commission and the advocacy of sustainable development.

In 2005 the government of New South Wales, established a Standard for Quality Natural Resource Management, to improve the consistency of practice, based on an adaptive management approach.

In the United States, the most active areas of natural resource management are wildlife management often associated with eco-tourism and rangeland (pastures) management. InAustralia , water sharing, such as the Murray Darling Basin Plan and catchment management are also significant.

Ownership Regimes

Natural resource management approaches can be categorised according to the kind and right of stakeholders, natural resources:

• State Property Regime

• Private Property Regime

• Common Property Regime

• Non-property Regimes (open access)

• Hybrid Regimes

State Property Regimealso the.....

Ownership and control over the use of resources is in hands of the state. Individuals or groups may be able to make use of the resources, but only at the permission of the state. National forest, National parks and military reservations are some US examples. Water access entitlements are an example from Australia.

Private Property Regime

Any property owned by a defined individual or corporate entity. Both the benefit and duties to the resources fall to the owner(s). Private land is the most common example.

Common Property Regimes

It is a private property of a group. The group may vary in size, nature and internal structure e.g. indigenous tribe, neighbours of village. Some examples of common property are community forests and water resources.

Non-property Regimes (open access)

There is no definite owner of these properties. Each potential user has equal ability to use it as they wish. These areas are the most exploited. It is said that "Everybody's property is nobody’s property". An example is a lake fishery. This ownership regime is often linked to the tragedy of the commons.

Hybrid Regimes

Many ownership regimes governing natural resources will contain parts of more than one of the regimes described above, so natural resource managers need to consider the impact of hybrid regimes. An example of such a hybrid is native vegetation management in NSW, Australia, where legislation recognises a public interest in the preservation of native vegetation, but where most native vegetation exists on private land.

Stakeholder Analysis

Stakeholder analysis originated from business management practices and has been incorporated into natural resource management in ever growing popularity. Stakeholder analysis in the context of natural resource management identifies distinctive interest groups affected in the utilisation and conservation of natural resources.

There is no definitive definition of a stakeholder as illustrated in the table below. Especially in natural resource management as it is difficult to determine who has a stake and this will differ according to each potential stakeholder.

Different approaches to who is a stakeholder:

Source	Who is a stakeholder	Kind of research
Freeman.	‘‘can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organization’s objectives’’	Business Management
Bowie	‘‘without whose support the organization would cease to exist’’	Business Management
Clarkson	‘‘…persons or groups that have, or claim, ownership, rights, or interests in a corporation and its activities, past, present, or future.’’	Business Management
Grimble and Wellard	‘‘…any group of people, organized or unorganized, who share a common interest or stake in a particular issue or system…’’	Natural resource management
Gass et al.	‘‘…any individual, group and institution who would potentially be affected, whether positively or negatively, by a specified event, process or change.’’	Natural resource management
Buanes et al	‘‘…any group or individual who may directly or indirectly affect—or be affected—…planning to be at least potential stakeholders.’’	Natural resource management
Brugha and Varvasovszky	‘‘…actors who have an interest in the issue under consideration, who are affected by the issue, or who—because of their position—have or could have an active or passive influence on the decision making and implementation process.’’	Health policy
ODA	‘‘… persons, groups or institutions with interests in a project or programme.’’	Development

Therefore it is dependent upon the circumstances of the stakeholders involved with natural resource as to which definition and subsequent theory is utilised.

Billgrena and Holme identified the aims of stakeholder analysis in natural resource management:

• Identify and categorise the stakeholders that may have influence

• Develop an understanding of why changes occur

• Establish who can make changes happen

• How to best manage natural resources

This gives transparency and clarity to policy making allowing stakeholders to recognise conflicts of interest and facilitate resolutions. There are numerous stakeholder theories such as Mitchell et al ^]however Grimble^[ created a framework of stages for a Stakeholder Analysis in natural resource management. Grimble designed this framework to ensure that the analysis is specific to the essential aspects of natural resource management.

Stages in Stakeholder analysis:

↕ Clarify objectives of the analysis

↕ Place issues in a systems context

↕ Identify decision-makers and stakeholders

↕ Investigate stakeholder interests and agendas

↕ Investigate patterns of inter-action and dependence (e.g. conflicts and compatibilities, trade-offs and synergies)

Application:

Grimble and Wellard  established that Stakeholder analysis in natural resource management is most relevant where issued can be characterised as;

• Cross-cutting systems and stakeholder interests

• Multiple uses and users of the resource.

• Market failure

• Subtractability and temporal trade-offs

• Unclear or open-access property rights

• Untraded products and services

• Poverty and under-representation 

Case studies:

In the case of the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, a comprehensive stakeholder analysis would have been relevant and the Batwa people would have potentially been acknowledged as stakeholders preventing the loss of people’s livelihoods and loss of life

Nepal, Indonesia and Koreas' community forestry are successful examples of how stakeholder analysis can be incorporated into the management of natural resources. This allowed the stakeholders to identify their needs and level of involvement with the forests.

Criticisms:

• Natural resource management stakeholder analysis tends to include too many stakeholders which can create problems in of its self as suggested by Clarkson. ‘‘Stakeholder theory should not be used to weave a basket big enough to hold the world’s misery.’’

• Starik ^[21] proposed that nature needs to be represented as stakeholder. However this has been rejected by many scholars as it would be difficult to find appropriate representation and this representation could also be disputed by other stakeholders causing further issues

• Stakeholder analysis can be used exploited and abused in order to marginalise other stakeholders

• Identifying the relevant stakeholders for participatory processes is complex as certain stakeholder groups may have been excluded from previous decisions.

• On-going conflicts and lack of trust between stakeholders can prevent compromise and resolutions.