Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-wxhwt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-10T14:45:38.427Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Renewable Resources — What are the Options?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Paul Ekins
Paul Ekins
Affiliation:
Research Director, The Right Livelihood Award; Coordinator, The Living Economy Network; and Research Fellow, School of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, Bradford, West Yorkshire BD7 1DP, England, UK.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This paper first identifies the main trends which have operated in the countryside of Great Britain since 1950, assessing the costs and benefits of these to different countryside interest-groups. This section concludes that the British countryside since World War II has been more or less willingly sacrificed for material affluence.

The paper then relates this process to economic activity, and in particular to the linear-model of such activity which is posited as currently dominant, together with the principal objectives which it is used to promote. This situation is compared with a circular economic model with different objectives. The comparison yields the conclusion that such a model would yield significant improvements over the linear model in terms of countryside diversity, amenity, and sustainability. The paper then moves on to a consideration of resources, and contrasts the different values given to different resources depending on the economic model which is being employed.

The final conclusion of the paper is that while renewable resources — many of them located in or deriving from the countryside — would seem to have much economic potential, the extent to which that potential will be sustainably realized will depend on the extent to which the circular economic model, and the values and objectives underlying it, replace the linear model in economic decision-making.

Type
Main Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1989 , pp. 209 - 216
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bollard, A. & Davis, J. (1986). As Though People Mattered: a Prospect for Britain. IT Publications, London, England, UK: xv + 184 pp.Google Scholar
Countryside Commission (1984). National Countryside Recreation Survey 1984. Countryside Commission, Cheltenham, England, UK: 20 pp. + Annexes.Google Scholar
CPRE [Council for the Protection of Rural England]. (1988). Concrete Objections. CPRE, London, England, UK: 16 pp.Google Scholar
Miller, F.A. & Tranter, R.B. (Eds) (1988). Public Perception of the Countryside. Centre for Agricultural Strategy. University of Reading, Reading, England, UK: Paper 18, 01 1988, 92 pp.Google Scholar
NOP [National Opinion Poll] (1987). Public attitudes to the environment. Pp. 54–61 in Digest of Environmental and Water Statistics. No. 9, 03 1987 (Department of the Environment. London, England, UK): 61 pp.Google Scholar
North, J. (1987). New Technology and Land-use in Europe. Span, 3(1), [30.1.87 but not available for checking]. (Shell Chemicals UK, London, England, UK.)Google Scholar
Pye-Smith, C. & Rose, C. (1984). Crisis and Conservation: Conflict in the British Countryside. Penguin, London, England, UK: viii + 213 pp.Google Scholar
Repetto, R. (Ed.) (1985). The Global Possible. Yale University Press. London & New Haven [not available for checking].Google Scholar
Stahel, W. & Reday-Mullvey, G. (1981). Jobs for Tomorrow. Vantage Press, New York, NY, USA: [not available for checking].Google Scholar
Vertegaal, P.J.M. (1989). Environmental impact of Dutch military activities. Environmental Conservation, 16(1), pp. 54–64, 7 figs.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
WCED [World Commission on Environment and Development] (1987). Our Common Future. Oxford University Press, Oxford, England, UK: xv + 400 pp.Google Scholar
WRI [World Resources Institute] (1984). The Global Possible. WRI, Washington, DC, USA: 39 pp. [The full report of this conference was published as Repetto (1985), qv.]Google Scholar