Have Societies Developed Indigenous Institutions Enabling Sustainable Resource Utilization?

ABSTRACT

In the course of their development processes, societies have apparently never been faced in the past by the necessity of developing stable regulating mechanisms (institutions) to secure their natural resource basis or the sustainable utilization of such. As a result, little historical experience has been gathered by societies in how to deal with sustainability. In the current situation in which societies are confronted by resource degradation, it is necessary to establish such institutions by means of political measures. The discussions in the past decades show how difficult this process is.

KEYWORDS:

• Institutions
• resource utilization
• soil degradation
• sustainability