National Plan

Environmental Impact Assessment

Public Participation

Political and Public Awareness

Land and Resources Planning

Economic Evaluation of Environmental Issues

Human Resources Capacities

Limited Financial Resource

Land and Resources Planning

Issue

Land and resource use planning is not commonly practiced.

Background

Urban and rural areas are subject to many development pressures to cope with increasing populations and its urban concentration, the demands of intensifying agriculture, increasing industrial activity, and the demand for energy, water and other natural resources to sustain it all. Land and resources are exploited with little regard to land and resource capability, compatibility of uses, long-term sustainability, or long-term full-cost prices. The problem is exacerbated by under-pricing of resources, programs which promote resource use, and the absence of an active public sector able to protect the long-term public interest.

Land and resource uses and developments are not assessed in their spatial or temporal contexts. All actions, even those in the public sector, are driven by projects, usually of a short-term nature (or viewed that way) and often individually small in scope but very large in the aggregate. There is very little co-ordination among often competing ministries. The “scatter-gun” approach creates coalescing “development blotches” out of harmony with the natural resources, the environment, and increasingly the culture.