Governance of natural resources: uncovering the social purpose of materials in nature aims to provide professionals (particularly development practitioners), academics and graduate students with a holistic perspective on the governance of natural resources. The book opens with a precautionary tale of the expert warning given in 2005 about the threat posed by an increase in seismic activity to the post-war infrastructure of the Japanese coastline. The subsequent tsunami of 2011 lived up to the prediction, with the devastating destruction of the coastline and infrastructure, the loss of more than 20,000 lives and repercussions for the local and national economy. Yet, even post 2011, in Japan and other countries around the world, the governance of natural resources is still not managed holistically so that the natural, human, economic and political framework operates in harmony. In this book, Jin Sato and the co-authors bring together diverse examples from across Africa, America and Asia-Pacific, with a particular emphasis on Japan, which explores the multiple dimensions of natural resource governance in forestry, protected area management, minerals, fisheries, water resources and the transport sector.
The book considers natural resources as “bundles of possibilities” (7), and resource governance the “governance of possibilities, which can shrink or expand based on the technologies, perceptions and most importantly, the politics among relevant stakeholders” (7–8). The holistic exploration of these governance arrangements includes a review of the long-term history of the bureaucratic structure and changes over time in Thailand, and the conflicting interests that can occur between those governing bodies responsible for the utilisation of raw materials and those governing bodies responsible for the conservation of the environment. The importance of understanding the long-term history of natural resources is reiterated in a chapter on mining in Zambia, and the shifts in ownership and management of these resources from colonial powers to private companies and to the government. This is relevant for many African mineral-rich countries and provides a good example of the interaction between the government and the private sector, and of policy decisions which influence the use of a particular natural resource and the implications for the people who are employed in that sector.
Several chapters focus more on the people dependent on the natural resources and how decision making can affect them positively or negatively. In Cambodia, the appropriation of the forests for government use and the entitlement sold to businesses for profit had a significant impact on the local resin tappers who traditionally utilised the trees for creating rubber, whereas the primary interest from the companies was to log the forests for timber. The chapter on Mt. Pulag National Park in the Philippines presents some of the uses and complexities of incomplete mechanisms for conflict resolution when multiple jurisdictions overlap in one geographical location. This presents the strengths and weaknesses of applying formal and informal, national, local and traditional dispute resolution mechanisms in a given area. Three chapters focus on local cases from Japan, but could be relevant to similar communities in other places. One discusses river management in Japan and the changing perceptions over a period of decades of how best to manage a river and proposed dam project, including the turbulent impacts on the local people whose livelihoods are in a constant state of flux and questioning as the dam is proposed, approved for construction and then finally dropped. Another case explores the rural development and regeneration of a mountain village whose inhabitants needed to rethink how they managed the local natural resources in the face of an aging population. As land became abandoned, a private–public agreement was made which put the former rice fields to use as beds for growing irises, which created a tourist attraction and an alternative livelihood for local villagers. A third case study from Japan discusses why fishermen were planting trees on the high mountains that fed the rivers that flowed into the sea, recognising that traditional knowledge and practices can be reintroduced for multiple benefits.
Two chapters take a multinational view of natural resource governance. The pervasive influence of national leaders over the way natural resources are governed in Latin America is given a strong critique, covering the history and contemporary trends in governance arrangements being applied to various resources across the region. The other multinational chapter explains how European vehicle emission standards, but not fuel quality standards, came to be applied in China. The two policy-making processes that influenced an environmental problem, in vehicle emission standards, and a natural resource problem, in fuel quality standards, are explained in depth, including the role of various actors within China and abroad.
Whilst I found this to be a solid collection of case studies in natural resource governance, if I could see one more chapter added to this book, it would be one that explores the global dimension of natural resource governance, such as through the United Nations, and the role that it plays in influencing decisions at a national and local level.
This is a comprehensive and current review of natural resource governance, which would be useful for policy makers and implementers, academics and tertiary students looking to work in this sector, to recognise the multiple dimensions they need to take into consideration when engaging in the governance of natural resources and how best to make use of these bundles of possibilities.
Geneva, Switzerland
© 2015 Canadian Water Resources Association
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07011784.2014.985719