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I am indeed delighted that the INREM Foundation is bringing
out this newsletter which is aimed at filling in a serious information
gap in the area of natural resource economics and management.
The INREM Foundation is committed to promoting judicious use
and management of India's land, water, forests, fisheries and
environmental resources through better teaching, training, research
and consultancy in the field of natural resources and environment
economics. Sustainable development which is now universally
accepted as the supreme goal of society critically depends on
how natural resources including environment are used and managed.
And, of all the disciplines that contribute to our understanding
of various natural resource systems and alternatives in their
use and management, resource economics ranks first. This is
so because it is only economics that can provide valuable insights
into human behaviour vis-a-vis natural resources, and into incentives
and disincentives necessary for changing the human behaviour
with a view to attaining the goals of sustainability and equity
in natural resources management.
Sadly,
however, much of the research, teaching and training in natural
resource economics in India and other countries is not problem-solving
and action-oriented. Consequently, natural resource policy makers
and managers are constrained, due to lack of readily usable
and reliable information, in formulating socially optimum policies
and programmes for the use and management of natural resources.
INREM Foundation seeks to improve the quality and relevance
of resource economics teaching and research in India. Collecting,
collating, abstracting, digesting and dissemination of relevant
in formation through the print media is one of the means of
fulfilling this goal.
After
having published an introductory text book, "Natural Resource
Economics: Theory and Application in India" (Oxford and
IBH 1997), INREM Foundation now is taking this next bold initiative.
I hope natural resource economics and management teachers, students,
policy makers, and managers will find this newsletter useful
and handy. We earnestly solicit from our readers popular articles,
case studies, book reviews, and information about conferences/
workshops/ seminars for publishing in the newsletter. We would
also welcome suggestions from our readers about the scope, style,
focus, or any others aspects of the newsletter.
I
am thankful to the Winrock International for financial support
and to Dr. William Bentley and Dr. John Kerr for their moral
support and valuable advice from time to time .
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