Co-operatives in Natural Resource Management

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Date

1993

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Abstract

"This report presents an analytical summary of the deliberations of the Workshop on Co-operatives in Natural Resources Management held at IRMA during 7-11 December, 1992. The report also draws upon the papers presented at the Workshop and other relevant literature. It is contended that as biological systems, the natural resources of land, water, forests, and fisheries are dynamic and amenable to management. Three alternative systems or regimes of managing natural resources are identified. They are privatisation, nationalisation, and collectivisation/co-operativisation. Experience with nationalisation of natural resources has not been good in most of the cases all over the world. Privatisation has yielded mixed results: it has been justified on efficiency grounds and condemned on equity and sustainability grounds. Co-operativisation or co-operative management is a relatively nascent regime although most natural resources in olden days were managed as common property by small and cohesive communities. The results of co-operative management of natural resources also have so far been mixed. But theoretically and ideologically, the co-operative mode of natural resources, management seems to be the best of all. This is so because with proper rules and regulations it can better meet the goals of efficiency, sustainability, equity and resource users' satisfaction and is politically and socially more acceptable in most societies and nations than any other alternatives."

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resource management, cooperatives

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