Contents - Previous - Next


This is the old United Nations University website. Visit the new site at http://unu.edu


2.2. The potential for transformational development

The present situation in Sarawak probably characterizes the main sago-producing areas of Indonesia and to a lesser extent those of Papua New Guinea. Two approaches may be taken to improving the utilization of sago produced by traditional technology. The first, and certainly the simpler alternative, is to upgrade the existing industry without introducing major structural changes. The second requires major structural and institutional changes aimed at rationalizing and integrating the industry in all its stages from the palm garden to the use of the final industrial starch. The second option is not fully elaborated here because it depends on a multiplicity of asyet unexplored factors. The first strategy requires upgrading of the industry at three levels (planter, miller and buyer-exporter) and limited integration of the levels, mostly through better coordination and information exchange (Fig. 3).

One of the major difficulties at the planter level in all sagoproducing areas arises from uncontrolled, Iargescale felling of palms over many decades without any replanting programmes. This has resulted in a diminished supply of logs. Moreover, usable palm stands are now found further from waterways suitable for transporting logs. In Sarawak, it takes an average of two days to move a palm from the felling site to a stream. This problem of access has led to an underutilization of mature palms located far from the mills and an overuse of the nearer immature stands. In terms of development planning, transport cost, rather than soil characteristics, is regarded as the principal factor delimiting areas suitable for sago cultivation. Basic to upgrading the sago industry at the planter or palm garden level is improved and broader access to stands of mature palms (to reduce the time between felling and milling), replanting to ensure a sustained supply of logs, improved cultivation practices, and biological improvement of the palms themselves.

Fig. 3. Aspects of an Integrated Sago Industry

The physical difficulty of removing felled palms to processing sites is regarded by farmer and agricultural officer alike as the major impediment to development of the sago industry. To reduce the labour requirements of transport, small canals should be dug to link exploitable palm stands with watercourses. Besides facilitating transport, the construction of canals will shorten the time between felling and immersion in the river water, thereby reducing the incidence of trunks being attacked by microorganisms and mammals. In Sarawak, canals are being dug approximately 1.6 km apart. Closer spacing is not recommended because it might result in excessive drainage of the swamp and changes to soil and peat layer with unknown effects on the palm stands. Inexpensive gates, made from locally available materials, may be built at the canal-river junctions as a further precaution against excessive drainage. The payment of premium prices for "fresh" logs could also speed delivery to the mills.

In Sarawak, a replanting and cultivating scheme has been implemented to assist owners of sago stands to rehabilitate their holdings after extracting mature palms. The goals of the scheme are to promote intensive agriculture, to achieve greater economic returns by using renewable natural resources more rationally, to establish sago plantations in central locations and intensify their cultivation in order to supply and support agro-industries and to develop new crop assemblages for the swamplands based on Metroxylon palms and intercalary catch crops. Holdings located on interfluves between tributary streams and the main rivers are to be grouped into blocks of 24-240 ha. Grouped thus, owners of the holdings will be able to pool labour more effectively for constructing transport canals.

Government intervention is needed in all three levels to transform the sago industry. Among planters, intervention is needed to: 1. Assess the stock of mature palms, rates of extraction, and to plan replanting schedules and phased exploitation until new plantings come into production; 2. Establish a sago research centre to study the biological, ecological and agronomic factors affecting sago yields; to examine soil, water cultivation and management practices and alternatives operating in a fragile swamp ecosystem; and, working with a crop still largely unknown to modern science, a specific research task should be the evaluation of "conventional wisdom"; 3. Improve coordination between planter and miller to ensure greater regularity of demand for, and supply of, sago logs to the mill; and 4. Provide financial assistance and to guide investment (particularly for technological improvement and quality control).

Milling of sago palms is traditionally a small-scale, cottage processing industry operated and owned by a single family. As the principal objective of the miller is to achieve a steady income for the least possible capital investment, technological levels and standards of quality and cleanliness remain low. and minor adjustments are made to the mill only when essential for staying in business. Typically situated in relatively isolated rural areas, millers have little knowledge of market prices, user needs or acceptable standards of quality. They depend on the buyerexporter to provide such information and to extend credit.

Transforming the industry at the mill level involves three principal elements: information, quality control and technological improvements of the processing plant. Millers have little or no idea about the industrial uses of sago, and even less information about the quality of starch needed for the different final uses. The first step in mill improvement should therefore be a matching of the end user's requirements with the quality of the product. This can be done either by promoting a greater degree of vertical integration in the industry, with exporters or even users having a share in production, or by enabling the millers to deal directly with the users to understand consumer requirements. Based on this information of consumer needs, millers must improve and control the quality of their product, which in turn requires certain technological improvements of the process. This basically entails the use of purified water for the final wash and improved drying facilities. Co-operative facilities could be developed for washing and flash drying. Small, but important in aggregate, improvements should be made to mill machinery to improve extraction rates and reduce starch waste and fibre content. Final processing plants (analogous to the Group Processing Centre for rubber produced by small holders in Malaysia) could be established to refine and dry sago flour to standard specifications. They could operate on share participation and be supplied with raw materials from either shareholders or producers cooperatives, and regulated to control the grade of flour. This would provide incentives at all stages of production, reinstating traditional sources of income and ensuring the better social distribution of income. Government intervention is needed at this level to develop standards and grades for sago starch to enable quality control and meaningful price quotation. Licensing could also be used as an instrument to control quality. The buyer-exporter, who handles sago as one of many commodities, invariably has no real commitment to the industry and is more interested in quick, cheap gains rather than in the sustained development of sago production. He makes loans to the miller, passes back discounts on inferior quality starch and has little or no capital investment in the productive process. Moreover, the buyer-exporter controls market and price information and is not averse to manipulting market variables (particularly prices) at the expense of the miller.

Transforming the industry at this level requires better vertical integration and an increase in competition to reduce the likelihood of monopsony. Cooperative marketing and direct exporting by the millers should be encouraged and supported by the central government providing market information and assistance. In particular the government should
1. Study the present and potential uses of the different grades of sago starch from the user's perspective;
2. Assess the relative merits of competitive starches and investigate the elasticities of substitution and potential for sago to capture the market of other starches, their derivatives and by-products;
3. Carry out international monitoring to provide regular market and price information to producers, traders and planners; and
4. Encourage organization of a producer's marketing cooperative and assistance in negotiating terms of contracts (and providing guarantees) between foreign buyers and domestic exporters.

Transforming the traditional sago industry without major restructuring is based on the stimulation of a locally adapted intermediate technology that, with the selective mechanization of critical processes, is more efficient than the traditional system, yet not completely automated. There is limited government intervention to facilitate marketing, set and control export standards, and to conduct research and disseminate the results. Such a process, involving small-scale modifications of the status quo, is more suitable to an established sago-producing region where vested interests are already deeply entrenched and where modernization must accommodate the distinct objectives of the different groups participating in the industry. After evaluating the success of measures taken in Sarawak to improve the industry, the upgraded traditional technology could be easily shared with the established sago-producing regions of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. With a high degree of modernization they could also be tested as a vehicle for introducing industrial starch production to the Orinoco and Amazon basins of South America, where the extraction of starch from the trunk of the Mauntia spp is a traditional subsistence activity among many ethnic groups.

Fig. 4. Aspects of the Sharing of Traditional Technologies for Sago Production

The strategy of upgrading with major structural change is more easily implemented in sago-producing regions where traditional commercial interests are not deeply entrenched and, unlike Sarawak, where the industry is not complicated by inter-ethnic rivalries and jealousies and traditional legal structures (such as the adat system) that make effective vertical integration of production difficult. Within the context of national starch development programmes, and in concert with the larger regional framework (e.g. ASEAN), this strategy consists of fully integrating the industry (see Fig. 4). It requires integration of all phases of production; technological integration, the organization and integration of appropriate institutions (both nationally and internationally); and spatial integration of sago production and the industries using palm starch and the by-products of sago manufacturing. In this approach. certain elements of existing traditional technologies are shared and intermediate technologies are developed. But where there is no history of commercial sago production these traditional factors can be more fully rationalized and integrated from the outset with the high technology of starch users.

Traditional resource systems are generally based on the exploitation of renewable natural resources, particularly plant resources, using largely unmodified technologies, the techniques of which are passed from generation to generation and form a corpus of conventional wisdom. Many of the plants used in such systems, or otherwise familiar to the inhabitants of marginal areas, are little known to modern science, and many could be of great potential importance as raw materials in the industrialized world. With carefully formulated policies and controls, and with the appropriate transformation of traditional technologies, it should be possible to work through existing traditional resource systems to develop such plant resources and to develop marginal areas by providing access to the markets of modern industrial countries.

Despite present limitations to the industry, sago production is probably the most suitable strategy for using the renewable natural resources of the tropical freshwater peat swamps. In some of the main sagoproducing regions, alternative means of livelihood are not generally available at the current technological level of the inhabitants. In those regions, Metroxylon palms tolerant of hydric sites are the only producers of significant quantities of starch. Potentially competing root or grain starches cannot be widely produced without prohibitively expensive engineering projects to control periodic flooding and drain and reclaim the land. That would lead to major, deleterious and not yet fully understood ecological consequences. Sago production is one of the few industries that are well-adapted to the utilization and ecological conservation of the fragile swamp environment.

In the freshwater swamps of Southeast Asia and Melanesia, most Metroxylon palm gardens occupy alluvial and clayey soils with high organic content or shallow peat soils, within 1.5 km of a watercourse. The palm appears to be well-adapted to undrained, infertile, acidic, peat soils of low agricultural potential. In addition, sago palms thrive without heavy application of lime or fertilizer. The sago ecosystem recycles scarce soil nutrients with little leaching and little or no reduction in the depth of the peat. Once the palm suckers are established in a new garden they can be maintained with minimal weeding, although greater yields could probably be obtained with better care and the reduction of mammalian pests. Moreover, the resource is stable and self-renewing through sucker growth. To make a palm garden the rain forest is cut and burned and suckers, removed from parent stock, are transplanted to the cleared area. Within a year of transplanting the young palm forms shoots, or tillers, each of which develops its own root system and trunk. Pruning and thinning of these palm clumps is rare, although it would certainly improve starch yields. Under such conditions, some palm gardens are known to have existed for 400 years.

Although rice is generally preferred as a staple, sago is a reliable source of carbohydrates during periods of rice shortage. Moreover, faith in the dependability of sago is heightened by the price instability of other crops, particularly rubber, and the unreliability of income derived from them. Rubber plantations have often been cleared and replanted with sago palms. In 1975 a survey of the main sago-producing areas of Sarawak revealed that 60 per cent of those owning sago gardens would expand their sago holdings were additional land available; that 67 per cent would not convert their sago gardens to any new, more profitable use; and that only 14 per cent would be willing to convert to a more profitable crop if they could retain some land in sago for security of food supply. "From a social viewpoint," notes Wee,25 "the tenacity of the sago-based culture assures a continuity of supply of the sago palm."

Although palm sago production has declined over the past several centuries there are indications that this trend could be reversed and sago regain some of its former importance beyond the present main producing regions. It may play a role in the cheap utilization of marginal environments, and in the recovery of sites severely damaged by man. Economic data from Sarawak, for example, show that palm starch can remain competitive with other starches. The productivity of Metroxylon could be vastly increased by cultivating it as a commercial crop; the number of harvestable trunks available (estimated at 40-60 ha/year in Sarawak) is double that now exploited, indicating that the potential increase in Metroxy/on sago could satisfy the demands of the potential local increase resulting from the mechanization of the extraction process.

3. The resource systems framework

3.1.Relationships and linkages within resource systems: the case of coastal zones
3.2.Concept of a resource system
3.3.Elements of the resource systems framework

As the foregoing case of the palm sago industry illustrates, transformational development policies cannot be designed or implemented effectively without appropriate knowledge of the local resource system. Such knowledge, to be useful for planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluating programmes for transformational development, must come from viewing resources as interacting systems.

The Resource Systems Framework developed in this book provides one approach to understanding the problems of and potentials for transformational development. It does not try to provide a comprehensive checklist of variables, standards, parameters or procedures that can be applied directly in the design of development programmes or projects. Rather it offers a framework, at different geographical scales, from which to derive locally appropriate and applicable guidelines and for assessing the potentials for local development. For, if development policies are to be made more effective in transforming resource systems, no universal methodology can be applied to solve the myriad local problems that appear in developing countries. However, a generic metamethodology, tailored to specific circumstances and needs, can be useful in understanding resource systems and in deriving more specific and detailed techniques of analysis that are adapted to local circumstances.

3.1.Relationships and linkages within resource systems: the case of coastal zones

The need for a framework for analyzing resource systems has become more apparent in recent years as more has been learned about the complex relationships among elements of resource systems and the potentially adverse consequences of ill-designed interventions. Such interrelationships can be particularly well-illustrated by reference to the coastal zones of humid tropical developing countries, where interaction, incompatibility and conflict resolution in the access to and the use of renewable natural resources constitutes one of the main tasks in coastal zone management.

In most tropical coastal zones in the developing countries, the recent rapid growth of marine transport and the accelerating growth of non-renewable resource extraction, in combination with the growth of agriculture, industry, tourism and recreation and the burgeoning urban sprawl and its waste disposal problems on the coastal lands adjacent to the shallow seas, has generated increasing incompatibilities or outright conflict with traditional uses of marine waters, and is posing an ever more serious hazard to human health.

In the coastal zones of the industrialized nations the problems are commonly those of overcoming existing incompatibilities or dealing with environmental degradation. But in developing countries the situation is largely that of preventing such problems from occurring in the future. Yet some of the incompatibilities in resource use in developing countries are not caused by development, but rather by the lack of it. The continuous discharge of even relatively small quantities of untreated sewage, for example, may lead to serious local beach pollution and human health hazards, and to a decline in the productivity of fisheries. Moreover, many developing nations have localized tracts of coastal zones which exhibit environmental degradation and incompatibilities in resource use akin to the problems of the industrialized world. Thus, in planning for the use of coastal zone resources the stage or level of development of specific coastal areas must be considered closely.

In most cases, incompatibilities and even outright conflicts in resource use have arisen because the development of coastal areas has proceeded haphazardly with little consideration for the interactions among the various activities or with little regard for their impact on the biological and physical environment. Coastal zone activities have generally been seen in isolation, with little consideration or understanding of the larger system of which local systems and isolated activities form a part.

The multiple uses of coastal resources interact in varying degrees owing to the spatial restriction of coastal zones and because of the lack of precisely-defined boundaries on the aquatic areas. However, many of the commonly occurring negative interactions are neither inherently conflicting nor mutually exclusive. Undoubtedly, many such incompatibilities arise from inadequate planning or from the lack of environmental safeguards. However, when biological phenomena are involved in complex associations and interacting environments like the coastal zone, a large number of unalterable, uncertain or even unknown factors such as oceanographic conditions, biological cycles or water chemistry, prevent thorough planning. Moreover, the consequences of inappropriate resource use activities are often not immediately apparent, being revealed after a considerable time lag, and they may emerge in a geographical location far removed from the source of the intervention. When the resultant environmental damage or deleterious impact on other renewable natural resources is noticed, it may be difficult both to pinpoint the cause and to effect a cure.

The principal categories of incompatibility or conflict that can potentially arise in the use of coastal zone resources include competition for the coastal space itself and, as a result of the closely proximate location of activities, environmental degradation by one activity adversely affecting another activity. However, such spatial interference among activities can extend over wide areas, and the environment of any particular coastal location can be potentially modified by far distant use of resources. An added complication is that this interaction can vary through time. In temporal terms, too, the use to which particular resources are put can, and often does, change. As a consequence, the present dedicated use of a given resource, or the degradation or destruction of one resource as a consequence of the use of another, may preclude other future potential uses of the same resource. A particular resource may be subject to synchronic competition from different groups of exploiters, such as artisanal and commercial fishermen. Conflicts also frequently arise in coastal zone management as a consequence of poorly-defined intragovernmental responsibilities. Responsibilities invariably overlap because most government departments and agencies are organized on a functional basis and only rarely are horizontal linkages established among them. Intergovernmental and international agencies also suffer from the same fault. Jurisdictional ambiguity is the common result of such deficiency in organization. In the case of a major oil spill in any coastal nation, for example, problems of jurisdiction may arise among the ministries of fisheries, environmental protection, tourism, transport, internal affairs, and external relations. Clearly a coordinated approach is required.

But not all interactions in the use of coastal zone resources are negative; some are actually, or potentially, complementary. The recycling of waste products from one activity can provide a raw material for another, for example, and may better and more efficiently integrate the use of coastal zone resources. Similarly, under certain circumstances the discharge of hot water from electricity generating plants has been shown to speed the growth of some fish species used in aquaculture.28 Conflicts in resource use are not inevitable, nor is intervention always required to prevent them. Theoretically, most polluting activities could be redesigned or altered to reduce their deleterious consequences for the use of other resources. But whether the technology to implement this idea already exists, or, in particular, whether this is either economically worthwhile or even feasible, is subject to debate. Realistically, such questions can only be answered at the local level, and on a case-by-case basis, and national priorities and objectives will form the only context in which such decisions will be made.

The vast majority of incompatibilities or conflicts in resource use take place in such intensively used and localized areas as estuaries, straits and enclosed bodies of water, where the degree of interaction may largely depend on conditions unique to the area. The ability of the environment to assimilate pollutants or contaminants, for example, is highly variable. In one area, therefore, serious conflicts could arise as a consequence of the discharge of polluting effluents whereas elsewhere only a relatively minor incompatibility might result.

The wide variety of coastal resource use activities and great diversity of coastal zone environments, together with the localized nature of most interactions among resource uses precludes a universally valid treatment or conceptualization of the problem. Moreover, coastal zone planning and management to optimize resource use compatibilities and options can only be useful at the local level (yet operating, of course, within the framework of nationally established priorities) although the manner in which larger systems affect local systems must always be kept in mind. Thus although resource use compatibility matrices may serve as a guide to likely sources of incompatibility and they may be useful for local-level planning, their value is severely constrained for both conceptual development and more general planning exercises. More useful in advancing the conceptual framework of resource use incompatibilities in the coastal zone is the use of an analogy between the dynamic interactions within natural ecological systems and the interactions that occur in resource systems of coastal areas. However, the dangers inherent in making socioeconomic analogs of biological systems and processes, although too well known to need reiteration here, should be clearly understood.

For the purposes of planning and management of resource development, coastal areas should always be seen as complex systems Planning and management of coastal areas must also recognize the limited nature of resources and the space available in coastal zones and always should aim at maximizing compatibilities and optimizing the multiple use of resources.

3.2.Concept of a resource system

A resource system is a combination of human, biotic and abiotic elements that provides for human needs. it consists of an entire chain of events through which a component of the general environment is perceived as a resource and passes from its source through processing or technological transformation to the creation and delivery of an end product that satisfies a perceived human need. Three main sub-systems may be distinguished: procurement, processing, and delivery. For simplification but not ignoring the fact that in most traditional resource systems complementary economic activities are of vital importance- it can be assumed that a particular resource can be identified as the principal component of an ultimate end-product, which is its main use as a resource. But the system must still account for all the supplementary resources such as tools, information, skills and transport needed to procure, process and deliver the item. It must also account for other factors that affect the functioning of the system, like ecological constraints or the social distribution of power and vested interests that might affect availability at the source. Taken together, these may be regarded as supplementary inputs. The model must also account for outputs in addition to the principal item(s) delivered for consumption, including by-products, wastes and pollution. Both inputs and outputs constitute linkages with other resource systems, either directly or through their impact on the general environment. In general, the greater the energy worth of a resource (i.e., the degree of technological advancement of the system) the greater will be the number of supplementary inputs and outputs, and the more interlinked will be the system with other systems. The degree of systemic interpenetration makes the rigid bounding of resource systems a highly complex task, to say the least, and one of dubious validity.

A number of issues that may be either random or poorly predictable complicate the analysis of a resource system, and planning in general. Principal among them are the political process, multi-level linkages, and the nature of household and small group decision-making. None, however, is either antithetical to the systems paradigm or destroys its utility. Some aspects of these issues are predictable, although not necessarily normative, and are amenable to inclusion in the evaluation of resource systems and the planning process. Use of the resource system model therefore assumes some degree of systems rationality, from which various group or individual decisions may deviate. In this respect it is no better or no worse than any other model.

3.3.Elements of the resource systems framework

The use of a systems framework for analyzing renewable natural resource problems is still a relatively new concept in many developing countries. Many, if not most, lack the trained manpower, the data base (together with the logistical support to generate data), and the hardware to implement a predictive, mathematical analysis of problems and the evaluation of a variety of possible solutions. But a systems approach does not necessarily imply the use of sophisticated techniques in every instance, and initially many models should be simple verbal or graphic ones. In most instances, highly sophisticated mathematical approaches need not be used at all or can be introduced only for computer simulations that might be required for a comparative analysis of alternative scenarios in the development and management of potential resource systems, or to analyze the short- or long-term consequences of modifications to existing resource systems.

The transfer of the variables or properties of a resource system into a simplified, generalized form of abstract image or model provides one means of understanding a small segment of reality. Simple models, which may be either "word models" (descriptions), "tabular models" (tables, statistics or balances), or "graphic models" (graphs and maps), although not being the panacea for poor data, can be constructed, in a preliminary fashion, on a relatively scanty data base, which is the only one generally available in most developing countries.

There is no doubt that most data available at present, particularly ecological and human behavioural data, are far from adequate in quality, quantity and time-depth to be useful for building sophisticated models with effective prediction capabilities and for structuring complex transformations. In every developing country, the data base on existing resource systems must be expanded by detailed, empirical field studies, once the broad outlines of existing resource systems have been modelled from the already available data. In this further detailed data acquisition at the micro-level, the building of simple systems models can provide invaluable insights into the components, processes and relationships within a resource system, and can provide an important underpinning for guiding and integrating empirical, multidisciplinary research. Even rough or preliminary models of resource systems can be extremely useful guides to the allocation of further effort in a manpower- and financescarce research situation, provided that such models are always recognized as crude and tentative.30 Applying the resource systems approach to "real world" situations will entail the use of many different models at different levels of detail, and a wide range of modelling approaches.

In the early stages of the analysis of a resource system, a simple graphic model might consist of a straightforward "box-and-arrow" diagram, such as those used in this book on several occasions. In this way the analyst makes explicit the components and processes of the resource system, and within the limits of available data ensures that the main ones are accounted for. Functions in the resource system can then be depicted graphically, prior to developing more sophisticated processes.

Fig 5. Resource Systems Framework

Among the most important uses of resource systems analysis are that (1) it provides planners and administrators with a means of making predictions about the behaviour of a resource system under different development strategies; (2) gaps in available data, and therefore research needs, are quickly pinpointed during model construction; (3) through "sensitivity analysis," those parts that most heavily influence the function of the system can be highlighted; and (4) such modelling forces the sharpening of concepts, and demands that hypotheses and theories about the charcteristics of resource systems be made more explicit. Once potential resource development strategies or changes in existing resource systems have been identified, a framework is needed to assist in assessing the impact of the various potential changes at the levels identified later in Figure 6. Such a model is presented in Figure 5, which depicts an "Actual Resource System," "Relationships among Resource Systems," and a "Potential Resource System."

The graphic model shown in Figure 5 is a conventional flowchart in which external or "driving" variables, internal or " system state " variables, " rate " variables or processes, and constants are shown. External or driving variables (e.g., "Political Economy") are outside of a particular resource system being modelled, but have an effect on performance inside the system. These external variables could be regarded as independent variables. Principal system state or variables internal to the resource system are indicated in Figure 5 by named boxes in the "Actual Resource System", and are, in effect, subsets of larger structures. They change through time depending on the rates of the external variables, and are dependent variables. Rate variables or processes, which account for the flows from one state variable to another (i.e., the interrelationships among the variables), are indicated in the figure by arrows between the boxes. (In this model, by convention, the originating state variable is at the tail of the arrow, and affects the recipient variable, at the head of the arrow.) The item "flowing" in the process between variables can represent a variety of things; such as matter, manufactured products, or cash. When the model is applied to the analysis of a "real" resource system, the "flows" of rate processes will be described by constants in mathematical equations.

The model depicted in Figure 5 may be used as a guide in impact analysis at various levels once a number of alternative resource management and transformational development strategies have been identified. This model stresses the interconnectedness among components and processes in a resource system, and can be applied regardless of the spatial scale of the system, regardless of whether several resources are procured, processed and delivered, or even though a single source item becomes a number of widely differing end products. In this model the major elements considered important in the evaluation of resources management and development programmes are identified and related to other elements. It therefore represents a set of hypotheses and facts stating the interrelationships among key variables. The model postulates that the processes of resource conversion and consumption are linked closely with technology, capital and resource endowment, and are also deeply rooted in both the sociocultural (particularly the administrative and political) environment and in the biological and physical environment. The model focuses on a diachronic evaluation of the status of an "Actual Resource System" and its potential evolution, assuming no development activities, as well as on its relationships with other existing or potential resource systems.

Fig. 6. Multi-level Relationships in Resource Systems

Figure 6 is an organizational device that can be used heuristically to establish the environmental (biological, physical, socio-cultural, infrastructural and organizational) context of a particular, local resource system, and in the initial organization of an analysis of the external spatial linkages and exogenous impacts on a resource system. In broad terms it can be used to hypothesize potentially useful development strategies at various geographic scales.

In chapters IV, V, and Vl, each element of the systems framework depicted in Figure 6- the international and national level, the regional level and the household economy level - is examined in more detail within the context of the resource systems relationships depicted in Figure 5.

Notes

1.U S. Agency for International Development, Environmental and Natural Resource Management in Developing Countries: A Report to Congress, (Washington: USAID, 1979), p. 1.

2 United Nations Economic and Social Council, Interrelationships Between Population, Resources, Environment and Development Report of the Secretary-General, (New York: United Nations, 1981), Document E/1981/5, pp 19-20.

3 Ibid, p. 21

4 USAID, op. cit., p 1

5 See United Nations Environment Programme, Patterns of Resource Use, Environment and Development Strategies. Cocoyoc, Mexico: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 1974

6 U.N. Report, op cit. p. 4.

7 Idem

8 World Bank, Forestry Sector Policy Paper, (Washington: International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. 1978), p 6.

9 U N. Report, op. cit., p 7

10. Ibid, p. 19

11 Ibid, pp 10 11.

12 These concepts are discussed in more detail in Kenneth Ruddle and Walter Manshard, Renewable Resources and the Environment Pressing Problems in the Developing World, Tokyo and Dublin: The United Nations University and Tycooly International Publishing Ltd. 1981

13 The concept of transformational development is described in more detail in Dennis A. Rondinelli and Kenneth Ruddle, Urbanization and Rural Development: A Spatial Policy for Equitable Growth, New York: Praeger Publishers, 1978.

14 Ibid, p. 181 ff

15 See Kenneth Ruddle and Terry B Grandstaff, "The International Potential of Traditional Resource Systems in Marginal Areas," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Vol 11 (1978), pp 119-131

16 See T B Grandstaff. K Ruddle, J N Hawkins, T C Foin and W.G Davis. "Implementing the Resource Systems Approach to Transformational Development," Resource Management and Optimization, Vol 1 (1980), pp 145-160

17 Rondinelli and Ruddle, op cit. p.181

18 Ibid, pp 180-196, See also, Dennis A Rondinelli and Kenneth Ruddle, "Appropriate Institutions for Rural Development: Organizing Senvices and Technology in Developing Countries," Philippine Journal of Public Administration, Vol XXI, No. 1 (January 1977), pp 35 52; and Dennis A Rondinelli, "Administration of Integrated Rural Development: The Politics of Agrarian Reform in Developing Countries," World Politics, Vol XXI, No 3 (April 1979), pp 389-416, for other discussions of the applications of the concept of transformational development

19 This section draws heavily on a more elaborate case analysis by K Ruddle, D V. Johnson, P K. Townsend and J D Rees, Palm Sago: A Tropical Starch from Marginal Lands, Honolulu: The University of Hawaii Press, 1978

20.Ibid, pp 95-130.

21 A C Wee, The Utilization and Management of Marginal Resource Systems: A Case Study in Freshwater Peat Swamps under Sago Cultivation in Sarawak, East Malaysia, unpublished paper presented at the Seminar on the Problems of Marginal Lands. (Honolulu: The East-West Center, 1977), p 28

22. Ibid

23. Ibid

24. Ibid., p. 31.

25. Ibid. p. 20

26. Grandstaff. etal, op cit., p. 147

27 This section draws heavily from a more detailed discussion in Ruddle and Manshard, op. cit. Pp. 356-359

28. See L. Neumann, "Interactions and Conflicts in Coastal Areas," in K-H Szelielda and B Breuer (eds) Proceedings, Interregional Seminar on Development and Management of Resources of Coastal Areas, Berlin: German Foundation for International Development and the United Nations, 1976

29 See Ruddle and Grandstaff, op cit. p 125; and Grandstaff et al, op cit., p 150

30 For the limits of comprehensive planning and modelling in developing countries see Dennis A Rondinelli (ed ) Planning Development Projects, Stroudsburg, Pa: Hutchinson and Ross Publishing Company, 1977; and Dennis A Rondinelli, "National Investment Planning and Equity Policy in Developing Countries: The Challenge of Decentralized Administration," Policy Sciences, Vol 10, No 1 (August 1978), pp. 45 74


Contents - Previous - Next