TAC has reported extensively on natural resources and sustainable practices. Much of this has focused on land, water, and biodiversity but the subject has expanded to include fisheries and forests and their underlying resources. Much of what follows here pertains to this widened array of natural resources. (For a recent paper on land and water resources, see TAC's 1995 paper on Priorities and Strategies for Soil and Water Aspects of Natural Resources Management Research in the CGIAR; for a recent paper on genetic resources, see TAC's 1994 Stripe Study of Genetic Resources in the CGIAR). At this juncture, and before turning to priority setting, three themes warrant further consideration: Agenda 21 and the CGIAR, natural resources and the substitutability among various classes of capital, and improving the reliability of information currently available on resource degradation.
The CGIAR, with its emphasis on natural resource conservation, has reviewed the elements of Agenda 21 and concluded that its work has direct implications for many of the themes treated there. The spirit of Agenda 21, then, is reflected in CGIAR activities. Beyond the environmental and resource management concerns, and to a greater degree than evident in Agenda 21, the CGIAR addresses poverty alleviation. It is, therefore, not surprising that the combination of concerns motivating the activities emanating from Agenda 21 and those engaging the CGIAR leads to considerable complementarity between the two rather than to strict congruency.
Recent discussion on economic and social development (e.g., Nurturing Development, I. Serageldin) underlines the importance of four classes of capital - human, physical (man made), natural, and social - and argues, among other things, that inter-generational transfers should be seen in terms of total capital, rather than in terms of any single class. These discussions recognize specifically the possibility of substitutability among the four, e.g., giving up a barrel of oil for more education. They also emphasize that, in a sense, natural capital can be created through the application of human capital (knowledge), a possibility long recognized in natural resources literature. TAC favours this point-of-view and also notes the added urgency that it brings to improving estimates of the relationships between changes in production practices, the state of natural resources, and the gains and costs (both broadly defined) of protecting such capital.
Finally, TAC notes the uncertain quality of the available information on trends in resource degradation and the opportunity to better assess its accuracy through a strategy of watershed-based research located at key sites and involving long term measurement. Initially, of course, TAC will base its priorities on the information currently available, but there is the expectation that, through time and with careful monitoring at key sites, the degree of uncertainty about the available information can be notably reduced. As that happens, TAC can reassess priorities and strategies.
