Partitioning Ecosystems for Sustainability

Abstract

1Decline in the abundance of renewable natural resources (RNRs) coupled with increasing 2 demands of an expanding human population will greatly intensify competition for Earth's natural 3 resources during this century, yet curiously analytical approaches to the management of 4 productive ecosystems -ecological theory of wildlife harvesting, tragedy of the commons, green 5 economics and bioeconomics -give only peripheral attention to the driving influence of 6 competition on resource exploitation. Here I apply resource competition theory (RCT) to the 7 exploitation of RNRs and derive four general policies in support of their sustainable and 8 equitable use: (i) regulate resource extraction technology to avoid damage to the resource base; 9(ii) increase efficiency of resource-use and reduce waste at every step in the resource-supply 10 chain and distribution network; (iii) partition ecosystems with the harvesting niche as the basic 11 organising principle for sustainable management of natural resources by multiple users; and (iv) 12 increase negative feedback between consumer and resource to bring about long-term sustainable 13 use. A simple policy framework demonstrates how RCT integrates with other elements of 14 sustainability science to better manage productive ecosystems. Several problem areas of RNR 15 management are discussed in the light of RCT, including tragedy of the commons, 16 overharvesting, resource collapse, bycatch, single species quotas, and simplification of 17 ecosystems. 18 19 Keywords: resource competition, tragedy of the commons, common property resource, natural 20 resource, sustainable use, wildlife harvesting, bushmeat, ecosystem management, fisheries 21 management, ecological niche, coexistence, competitive exclusion, equitable resource use 22 23