Assessing the role of land use planning in natural resource management

Mitchell, David, Michael Buxton and Trevor Budge

This paper provides an overview of the issues facing natural resource management, and an assessment of the capacity and capability of the land use planning system to respond to natural resource management issues. The international push for the introduction of sustainable development has had an impact on land use planning and natural resource management. There have been calls for widespread changes to land use, and the introduction of sustainable land management practices, to help arrest natural resource degradation and loss of biodiversity. At present there has not been widespread changes to land use due to limitations in the institutional, statutory, and policy frameworks and the political, cultural and community attitudes to large-scale land use change at the direction of government. Limited regulatory power means that changes to land use are made on a voluntary or commercial decision-making basis, and rely on landholders having a stewardship ethic or vested interests in pursuing such changes.

Event: FIG Working Week 2004 : Breathing the Olympic Spirit

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Document type:Assessing the role of land use planning in natural resource management (108 kB - pdf)