State Control versus Individual or Common Property Rights: The Most Sustainable and Efficient Use of the Natural Resources in Context

Abstract

Human beings are blessed with different kinds of natural resources, appropriate use of which can give us enormous convenience. At the same time, unsustainable uses can turn them into curse for us. Additionally, limited nature of natural resources is a strong push to ensure sustainable use of them so that human beings can be benefited for long time. In line with this need, there is a continuous debate about who can ensure the most sustainable and efficient uses of natural resources, state control or other alternatives (such as individual or common property rights). This essay attempts to resolve the debate by examining to what extent each approach is successful in ensuring sustainable use of natural resources along with their limitations. In so doing, the way of exploration and exploitation of some resources (such as water, air, and land) by different stakeholders has been specifically focused on. Finally, this essay concludes that each approach has both success and constraints, while state alone in some cases can better ensure sustainable and efficient use of resources by eliminating its constraints, and in other cases, a combined control is required.