Natural Resource Management

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The management of natural resources becomes an increasingly vital and complex issue with implications which often transcend local, national and regional boundaries. Throughout the world habitats and individual species are disappearing at an alarming rate. Population growth requires increasing food production that leads to further environmental degradation and greater demands on finite water resources. Only a concerted effort on an international scale, with due recognition of local rights and needs, can arrest the alarming rate of biodiversity loss in our ecosystems. The conservation of the environment is recognised as being as much about enhancing the livelihoods of some of the most disadvantaged rural communities as it is about the technology of conservation or global economics.

ULG has worked in virtually every environment from tropical rain forests to deserts. Perhaps most importantly, we have more than 30 years experience of working with rural communities and understand the absolute imperative of their involvement in, and commitment to, sustainable resource management. We are aware of the role of modern technology in the preservation of biodiversity, and the rights of sovereign states to the benefits which may be derived from commercial utilisation of the gene pools inherent to their ecosystems. We recognise particularly the inalienable linkage between sustainable resource management and the achievement of sustainable rural livelihoods.

ULG’s experience includes the planning and management of major national parks, community-based natural resource management in protected areas, responsibility for a programme to conserve one of the world’s most endangered species, and a major regional training programme in wildlife management. In Africa and Asia, we have experience of running long term projects aimed at protecting dwindling areas of primary forest through the development of community livelihood activities based on non-destructive forest product utilisation and environmentally sound production in the forest margins. In these, and all our other projects, we accomplish our work through the use of multi-disciplinary teams that are able to take a holistic approach to resource management encompassing technical, financial, economic, and social factors.