Natural Resource Management

About this book

One of the greatest needs in natural resource management is for a deeper understanding of the intricate relationship between humans and the natural environment. Human Dimensions Research, an interdisciplinary field involving a broad variety of social science approaches, seeks to fill this need by providing multidimensional assessments of people's behavior, attitudes, and expectations toward natural resources and their uses. Written by and for scholars, planners, and policymakers, Natural Resource Management: The Human Dimension focuses on issues such as the public's role in the decisionmaking processes of ecosystem management that affect how we use (or abuse) natural resources. It exposes the reader to a wide variety of applications of Human Dimensions Research as well as the significant issues involved. At a time when we are either loving our forests and parks to death or paving them over, a better understanding of the problems is critical if we are to create workable policies that will preserve and protect our natural resources.