THE FOCUS OF this book is on understanding resource management as a socio-cultural concept. It builds on one of the themes that received attention after the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, namely, that environmental coping strategies under conditions of scarcity are a precondition for secure livelihoods. The volume highlights security as a central aspect in resource utilization and how the potential for conflict stems not only from the control of resources but also from different ways of perceiving the resource base, and its proper use, as a prerequisite for social and environmental security. It highlights also the fact that people's relationship to the
environment is always more than purely biological and rational, and that socio-cultural systems encompass different perceptions of the environment and influence the pattern and choices in its management.
The essays in this volume were selected from 80 presentations given at the conference on “Livelihoods From Resource Flows: Awareness and Contextual Analysis of Environmental Conflict” held in Linköping, Sweden in 1996. The volume consists of ten chapters, in which the authors discuss the inter-linkages between resource base, supply, management and needs satisfaction from different perspectives and geographical areas. This includes a background essay which provides a framework for understanding the complexity in upholding secure livelihoods through sustainable resource management. Another chapter provides a comprehensive discussion on security, tracing the evolving discourse on the
subject in the 1990s. Other chapters include examples of the growing conflict over oil in Nigeria; environmental awareness and conflicts in defining resources in Tanzania; reflections on the Amazonian groups of Peru from a human ecological perspective; and resource utilization among the Paliyans in South India. The selection of essays illustrate the central role of security in resource utilization and the complexity of local-global interaction in environmental management.