The human dimension of resource management programs

Abstract

The human dimension of resource management looks at the “outliers” not those behaviors occuring in the bell curve. These authors believe the outliers behavior in specific biophysical settings, has a multiplicative effect. The interaction of these two dimensions is where research on policy effectiveness needs to be focused. This would require a new approach to research activities resulting in enhancement to current approaches to measuring conservation programs, structural changes to research activities, and changes in policy instruments. Since the beginning of federal soil conservation policy, discussions on how to measure the effectiveness of resource management policies have been dominated by two principal themes. The first centers on policy tools embedded within resource management programs, such as studies that compare the efficacy of voluntary and regulatory approaches in soil conservation policy (Napier and Johnson, 1998; Napier, 1990, 2000). This theme attempts to answer the basic question of how to achieve an optimal combination of incentives and disincentives for encouraging landowners to adopt resource management practices. The second principal theme surrounds the biophysical models and assessment techniques used in evaluating the status of the natural resource base (Lovejoy, 1997; Goebel and George, 1998; Fitzhugh and Mackay, 2001). This theme addresses …