Resources and Development

Abstract

The relationships between natural resources and development are profoundly important, but contingent and contradictory. Indeed, the evolutionary paths of different resource industries, and even different areas with similar resources, are remarkably diverse, and debates over the role of resources in development rage around the world. For some nations, resources have been an evolutionary stepladder for high incomes and diversified economies, while others seem cursed and trapped by their resource dependency. In Canada, with its long tradition of resource exploitation and of its theorization, these debates continue to engage different (optimistic and pessimistic) approaches (Gunton 2003). More evocatively, Canada's Athabasca heavy oil deposits became both a vital national growth pole and national target over its environmental consequences and a polarization of views that fuels an oil pipeline extension controversy in the United States, where energy security and competition are also issues. Meanwhile from local perspectives, resource communities around the world grapple with the myriad problems associated with booms and busts while all levels ofThe International Encyclopedia of Geography.