Reframing for Sustainability: Exploring Transformative Power of Benefit Sharing

Ilkhom Soliev and Insa Theesfeld
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Ilkhom Soliev: Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Food Policy, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, 060099 Halle, Germany
Insa Theesfeld: Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Food Policy, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, 060099 Halle, Germany

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 8, 1-23

Abstract: It is broadly agreed that development needs and effects from changing environment will increase pressure on the ways natural resources are utilized and shared at present. In most parts of the world, resource stress has already reached unprecedented levels setting resource sustainability high on the policy agenda on multiple governance levels. This paper aims to explain how the benefit sharing approach can help reframe the debate for sustainability, its advantages and disadvantages for transforming governance challenges and adapting to increasing resource stress. We bring together fragmented discussions of benefit sharing from three resource domains: water, land, and biodiversity. Both theoretical and empirical examples are provided to aid understanding of how benefit sharing can facilitate adaptive governance processes in complex socio-ecological systems. The findings highlight importance of integrating the long-term perspective when societies move from volumes toward values of shared natural resources, as well as setting environmental conservation and equitable allocation as the top priority for benefit sharing to be sustainable.

Keywords: benefit sharing; natural resources; conflict; resource stress; transformation; cooperation; adaptive governance; sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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