Center for the Governance of Natural Resources A Center created
to study the governance of natural resource systems. The
majority of the world's natural resources are poorly governed.
Globally, and within most countries, we dissipate much of the
value of our natural resources and we are not using resources
sustainably. The continued degradation of our natural resource
systems is not just an ecological tragedy, but also a human one:
it will be harder to achieve sustained human development in the
long run if if we continue to weaken the earth's life-support
system. Why have societies persistently failed to govern natural
resources well? The problem is not that humans lack an adequate
understanding of how natural systems work. Rather, the problem
is primarily political and behavioral in nature, related to
governance and the failure of humans to create institutional
arrangements that support coordinated actions locally,
nationally, and internationally. Although analysts have made
important advances in our collect