Property Rights of Public Natural Resources: a new legal alternative for developing countries

IRRERA, F., M. ONETO AND J. E. RABINOVICH

Managing Human-Dominated Ecosystems

Missouri Botanical Garden Press

Lugar: St. Louis; Año: 2001; p. 304 - 311

In many developing countries institutional and administrative constraints may hinder the sustainable use of the natural resources (Rabinovich, 1999, this book). In what follows we will analyze those constraints of legal nature. Although most of the experience is drawn from Argentina, it may be applicable to some other Latin American countries . For simplicity we will consider that variety of situations as representative of the “South”, term we will use with that sense. Legal and administrative constraints are usually complicated because of the critical economic and social conditions in many states of the “South”. Thus it is difficult that a broken state will fulfill its duties of caring for the environment. The analysis and the proposal here elaborated are based on the idea of the conversion of natural resources into a business for both the state and the private sector, in order to foster the rehabilitation and maintenance of the natural resource base. We analyze here the goods that constitute the public property of the State, and in particular natural resources, and we look into the judicial configuration that entitles exploitation and at the same time guarantee their care. This has two connotations: one, and possibly its main ingredient, is the care of the resources for its preservation and maintenance of its natural renewal capacity; and the other, that this care should be compatible with adequate economic profits as to be attractive as a business or, when used for subsistence –as in the case of rural people-, to provide an adequate living standard for the household. These two conditions imply a sustainability approach, and a modification of the historical tradition of obtaining earnings without internalizing the costs of nature as provider and/or recipient of their use, that is to say, to avoid the transfer of potential negative externalities to the society. To be able to outline and justify an alternative to the sustainable use of the natural resources in the South, we should review different legal definitions to a potentially applicable configuration.