Natural resource management ties in with applied concepts such as maximum sustainable yield (MSY) and optimum utilization. Every natural resource has its optimum utilization, or acceptable levels of use, which are established scientifically and according to which management authorities regulate its exploitation. Such a concept presupposes scientific knowledge as a basis for management and also a regulatory authority (whether national or international) capable of enforcing the exploitation of the resources in accord with such scientific knowledge. The MSY is a regulatory concept that translates precepts of population dynamics into a management tool. Population studies in fisheries have shown that, in a given population, when the deaths increase as a result of human harvesting (exploitation), reproduction rates usually start to rise (as if compensating for the deaths). Theoretically, that resultant surplus production can be harvested sustainably, provided that the harvest is consistently maintained under the MSY, which is specific to each population (rather than to the species as a whole). That is the peak level, beyond which the negative effect of decreasing numbers on the overall population starts to exceed the positive effect of increased reproduction rates. Subsequently, the population as a whole (and not just the harvestable surplus) begins to decline. On the other hand, maintaining exploitation levels below the MSY creates an efficient use of the resources’ regenerative capacities, thus in principle enabling exploitation to continue indefinitely. The use of this tool, which was first developed in fisheries, has been extended more broadly, notably through its incorporation into the Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982). However, it has tended to be associated with species-specific management regimes. It requires careful monitoring of population growth and overall health, and overharvesting can easily occur if the population suffers outside declines, such as disease or habitat loss, and harvesting levels are not adjusted. Additional regulations, such as limiting the harvest of females or immature individuals, can help ensure that populations are maintained at sustainable levels.

Another way to think about natural resource management is to think about the purpose of the management. The management objectives are determined by the purpose of the resource itself—as a primary resource, as a raw material or fuel, as a source of food, or as a recreational resource. Those uses fall into two broad categories, consumptive and nonconsumptive. Consumptive utilization implies a once-only form of use—that is, it refers to activities in which the resource is effectively consumed or used up, such that it cannot be utilized by another party. Hence, the possibility of future exploitation relies on the resource’s ability to regenerate itself. Nonconsumptive utilization also uses the resource to generate economic value, but it does so without using up the resource itself. That category encompasses most recreational uses of natural resources. In the case of consumptive uses, management implies balancing exploitation with a respect for the resource’s regenerative capacities. In nonconsumptive uses, management centres on regulating the ways in which humans interact with the resource and containing the negative effects of those interactions on the resource. In either case, management is always about resolving a tension between the potentially conflicting objectives of protection and exploitation. Sometimes the use of a resource may change over time or from one part of the globe to the next. The overexploitation of whales is a case in point: whales were initially a primary raw material and fuel in the West, until the mid-20th century, whereas today whales are considered a recreational resource in the West and a food in other areas. This coexistence of different forms of use around the same resource has generated conflicts.

Another strand in natural resource management literature focuses on the difficulties in managing collective resources—that is, resources not contained within specific territorial boundaries (such as the sea or air) or resources whose management at the local level has global repercussions, such as forests. According to one line of argument, known as the tragedy of the commons, collective resources lack the incentives inherently built into a privately owned resource to self-limit their exploitation so as to ensure that they will last. In other words, individual users tend to consume as much of the collective resource as possible before others can get to it, resulting in the overall loss of the resource for all. Also at stake in discussion of collective resources is the issue of private versus communal management, a question that goes to the heart of environmental politics.

John S. Dryzek and David Schlosberg (eds.), Debating the Earth: The Environmental Politics Reader, 2nd ed. (2005); Nico Schrijver, Development Without Destruction: The UN and Global Resource Management (2010).