Principles of sustainable management
Big idea: Sustainable resource management balances economic use with environmental protection and social equity.
The three pillars of sustainability
- Environmental: Maintain ecosystem health, biodiversity, and natural capital
- Economic: Ensure long-term economic viability and efficiency
- Social: Promote equity, community wellbeing, and fair distribution of benefits
Key principles
- Precautionary principle: Act to prevent harm even without complete scientific certainty
- Polluter pays principle: Those who cause pollution should bear the costs
- Intergenerational equity: Leave resources for future generations
- Maximum sustainable yield: Harvest at the rate of natural regeneration
- Substitution: Replace non-renewables with renewables where possible
- Efficiency: Get more output from less input
Maximum sustainable yield (MSY) is the largest harvest that can be taken indefinitely without depleting the resource. Exceeding MSY leads to resource decline.
Exam tip: When explaining sustainable management, always link strategies to the three pillars — environmental, economic, and social sustainability.
Management strategies
Big idea: Sustainable resource management uses a combination of regulatory controls, economic instruments, and technological solutions to balance use and conservation.
Regulatory approaches
- Quotas: Limits on extraction (e.g., fishing quotas, logging permits)
- Protected areas: National parks, marine reserves, no-extraction zones
- Legislation: Environmental impact assessments, pollution standards
- Moratoriums: Temporary bans to allow recovery (e.g., whaling moratorium)
- Certification schemes: FSC for timber, MSC for fish
Economic instruments
- Taxes and levies: Extraction taxes, pollution charges
- Subsidies: Support for sustainable alternatives
- Tradeable permits: Cap-and-trade systems for emissions or catch
- Payment for ecosystem services: Paying landowners to conserve
- Green procurement: Government purchasing of sustainable products
Technological and behavioural solutions
- Recycling: Recover materials from waste stream
- Substitution: Replace scarce materials with abundant alternatives
- Efficiency improvements: Better technology uses less resource per output
- Circular economy: Design products for reuse, repair, and recycling
- Demand reduction: Lifestyle changes, sufficiency, sharing economy
Exam tip: For evaluation questions, consider the effectiveness, cost, feasibility, and equity of each management strategy.