Resource Management

Water related problems such as floods, droughts, declining groundwater tables or polluted rivers have a major impact on numerous societies throughout the world. Despite these serious problems, policy makers seem to make scant use of the knowledge that is available with water experts. Conversely, water experts face the task of finding out how they should position themselves to ensure that their analysis contributes to policy making.

This book deals with the role of natural resources for social security and livelihood in a Minangkabau village in West Sumatra. First of all it touches on problems of property rights; an analysis of communal land rights in this matrilineal society, the clash between adat and state law and perceived changes therein.

In the northwestern corner of Russia lies the Barents Sea: a region of natural resources that has yet to be fully exploited. Future actions taken in the Barents Sea region will create environmental, political, and economic ripples around the globe. Big Oil Playground, Russian Bear Preserve or European Periphery? explores three plausible and thought provoking scenarios for the region’s future over the next two decades.

With the first democratic elections of 1994 the Apartheid State of South Africa came to an end. Political and economic reforms were badly needed, also in the fishing sector, as ownership to vessels, quotas and processing plants was highly skewed in favor of the white minority. Starting with a broad-based Fisheries Policy Development Committee in 1994, South Africa finally got its new Marine Living Resources Act in 1998. Based on this Act redistribution could start, aiming at creating more equal access. However, results soon turned out to be different from anticipated.

This book provides an overview of the research related to sustainable development conducted at Delft University of Technology in the Department of Geotechnology. Geotechnology is the science and engineering of physical processes on the surface and within the subsurface of the Earth. Among the contributions are a broad range of academic investigations that address both short-term issues and long-term challenges associated with building a sustainable society.

Will the free market solve our problems with regard to global resource depletion or will technology alone save us? Are total absolute quantities of resources more important than the accessible part of them that can be converted into production at meaningful rates and at affordable cost?

This book provides a discussion of natural resource users' self governance in the context of a modern market-based society. It challenges current explanations of self-governance and suggests alternative perspectives to mobilise the capacity of natural resource users to co-govern their use of a common resource base.

Indigenous peoples are under heavy pressures from development beyond their control. Their territories and natural resources are threatened and, hence, also their economies, cultures and customary ways of life. Yet, globally there is also an increasing awareness for the need to secure the rights of indigenous peoples. Indeed, we also see a growing, self-initiated empowerment process among indigenous peoples to meet these challenges.

Maritime Studies (MAST) is an international journal devoted to maritime issues, produced by the Centre for Maritime Research (MARE) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It is a sequel to Maritime Anthropological Studies, which appeared between 1988 and 1993. MAST is a social science journal intended for scholars who are engaged in research on marine and coastal matters, from an academic or applied point of view.

Off the coast of Namibia lies the so-called Benguela upwelling system, a very rich source of marine life supporting traditional and modern forms of fishery. This book describes and analyses the Namibian experience with the optimal management of fishery resources, which will be a valuable reference book for fisheries managers from around the world in a time of controversy over destructive modern fishery methods and the global search of a sustainable management of the earth’s natural resources.