Natural resource economics concerns itself with the interaction of economic and environmental issues of supply, preservation, and allocation of natural resources, such as water, gas, minerals, and so on. “How producers and consumers use environmental resources depends on the property rights governing those resources” (Sandberg and Clancy 27). The proprietor, whether an individual or a state, is entitled to the “rights, privileges and limitations for the use of the resource” (Sandberg and Clancy 27).
Thus, environmental problems are fully dependant on such entitlements. Taking into account rapid climate change, excessive deforestation, water, air, and ground pollution, it may be assumed that these problems are triggered by a breach of property rights of the companies whose major pursuit is profits rather than the needs of people since natural resources is a commercially lucrative sphere.
A lot of attention was drawn in scientific circles to the question of property rights in natural resource economics and its economic and environmental impact. In this paper, I am going to examine three articles that focus on the role property rights play in natural resource economics. Thus, Allen Abramson in Property Rights and Economic Development: Land and Natural Resources in Southeast Asia and Oceania provide his observations about socioeconomic and environmental issues of land-holding in Southern Asia and Oceania.
The author posits “that communally owned land in the developing world was likely to become overexploited and stagnant”, which was the reason why individuals possessed a strong interest in acquiring property rights over the land, allegedly, to foster socio-economic development (Abramson 45). Taking this allegation into account, it may be assumed that the proprietors of natural resources play a major role in the allocation of them and the development of the economy of the country.
Moreover, the holders of the rights for allocation of natural resources are responsible not only for the present disposal of environmental resources but for their preservation for future generations. The belief is that individually owned resources are based on the assumption that “an owner of a resource with a well-defined property right has a powerful incentive to use that resource efficiently because a decline in the value of that resource represents personal lose” (Abramson 45). According to the article, this factor played a decisive role in abandoning a system of communally owned land and implementing a new model of land ownership.
However, the local system of ownership of natural resources and land could not be simply substituted as it was rooted in the state legislation, which resulted in the situation when part of natural resources was still owned by the community and individual owners possessed property rights of the other part of the land and natural resources (Abramson 48). To illustrate this assumption the author provides the example of the Lake Toba region of Sumatra where the deterioration of land surrounding the lake was partially caused by inadequate disposal of communal property rights. However, greater environmental impact was made by “a whole host of state-led and commercial tourist developers around the lake” (Abramson 53).
Another article that dwells on the property rights acts in natural resource economics is State Private Property Rights Acts: the Potential for Implicating Federal Environmental Programs by Ann L. Renhard Cole. According to the article, private property right acts are directed at “providing a safeguard against private property restrictions and land devaluation from certain government agency environmental and land use regulations” (Renhard Cole 685).
The article examines the problem of state intrusion into the private rights of the landholders that are entitled by private property rights acts. Thus, the “Wise Use Movement” consisting of landowners, trade associations, developers, was created to ensure the legality of the state regulation of private lands claiming that “landholders have an incentive to rotate crops or to fertilize and irrigate the land to raise the productivity of their land” (Renhard Cole 690).
A very illustrative example of the discrepancy of state and individual property rights is provided in the article: a case of a landowner who is unable to construct “a private real estate with its wastewater treatment plant” near the river since it will exceed the number of pollutants in the river on account of the clean water act (Renhard Cole 692). However, the paper mill situated near the land discharges pollutants into the river, which makes a landowner claim property rights to build a plant. Thus, the author implies that the Act can “diminish the private property protections provided in the federal and state constitutions” (Renhard Cole 697).
The last but not the least article I’m going to concentrate on is Property Rights, Small Woodlot Owners, and Forest Management in Nova Scotia by L. Anders Sandberg and Peter Clancy that concerns the advantages and disadvantages of individual and public property rights of woodlots in Nova Scotia. According to the article, individual woodlot owners enjoy the private property rights that allow them to abandon forest land when it is “wasted and exploited” pointing out that the concept of exclusivity of rights may entail gross environmental problems which triggered implementations of certain restrictions in property rights in the legislation (Sandberg and Clancy 35).
However, the authors advocate corporate or individual private property rights because the landowners prevent excessive deforestation, “harvesting lands for firewood and construction material, burning the forests, hunting, and destruction of biodiversity” (Sandberg and Clancy 50). Moreover, the landowners are responsible not only for woodlots but for the prosperity of society. In conclusion, the authors suggest that the laws of private and corporate property rights and their connection to political, environmental, and economic issues should be thoroughly examined by the officials.
All things considered, it should be noted that the notion of property right, whether individual or common, is interconnected with natural resources economics, environment, and politics and should be regulated according to appropriate standards of legislation.
Works Cited
Abramson, Allen. “Property Rights and Economic Development: Land and Natural Resources in Southeast Asia and Oceania.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 9.2 (2003): 45-58. Web.
Renhard Cole, Ann L. “State Private Property Rights Acts: the Potential for Implicating Federal Environmental Programs.” Texas Law Review 76.3 (1998): 685-723. Web.
Sandberg, L. Anders, and Clancy, Peter. “Property Rights, Small Woodlot Owners and Forest Management in Nova Scotia.” Journal of Canadian Studies 31.1 (1996): 27-51. Web.