Governance Principles for Natural Resource Management

TLDR

Sustainable natural resource use and management create novel governance demands that require normative guidance, yet existing principles for sustainable natural resource governance remain limited. The authors present a suite of governance principles for natural resource governance, designed in an Australian multilevel context but generally applicable at local, subnational, and national scales, and propose them as a platform for developing monitoring and evaluation instruments. The principles guide the design of governance institutions that are legitimate, transparent, accountable, inclusive, fair, and that exhibit functional and structural integration, capability, and adaptability, and can also support the development of monitoring and evaluation tools.

Abstract

Sustainable natural resource use and management make novel demands on governance arrangements, the design of which requires normative guidance. Although governance principles have been developed for diverse contexts, their availability for sustainable natural resource governance is so far limited. In response, we present a suite of governance principles for natural resource governance that, while developed in an Australian multilevel context, has general applicability and significance at local, subnational, and national scales. The principles can be used to direct the design of governance institutions that are legitimate, transparent, accountable, inclusive, and fair and that also exhibit functional and structural integration, capability, and adaptability. Together, they can also serve as a platform for developing governance monitoring and evaluation instruments, crucial for both self-assessment and external audit purposes.