Keynote Address--Governing Shared Resources: Key Challenges

Abstract

"Is there something called global commons/common goods today? If we view the value of common resources as that which is due to nature and to the activities and demands of society as a whole, and not to the efforts or skill of individual people or organizations, I am not sure! We have moved away many miles from this assumption. Let me draw your attention to the issue of food and genetic resources. For millennia people around the world were exchanging natural resources that formed the basis for food security and livelihood security. The inter-dependence of countries for food security has been amply demonstrated. There is no one country in the world –big or small – that is independent with regard to their sufficiency in natural resources or food crops. However, that seems not to be the basis for much of current global governance debates in biodiversity or natural resources management."