Three major considerations closely related to natural resource issues will guide TAC in its priority-setting in this area.
1. As TAC understands it, the Group sees natural resources as one of four major categories of capital (natural, physical, human, and social), recognizes that the four are substitutable over a wide range, and favours strategies that encourage an increase in the total stock of capital.TAC notes that this view of capital reinforces the urgency of examining the rates at which one class of capital substitutes for another. In particular, for the CGIAR, there is a need to improve estimates of the relationships between changes in the various classes of natural capital, production practices, and the advantages (broadly defined) of protecting such capital.
2. As stated in the Lucerne declaration, the CGIAR's research agenda should address problems of the poor in both the less-endowed and high potential areas. Against this background, TAC notes the importance for priority setting in natural resource management of the Groups's judgement that CG's work should be centred on people (see note on Criteria and Framework/or CGIAR Priority Setting). Therefore, TAC will favour allocating resources such that the balance between high and low-potential environments will emerge from the Group's concern with poverty alleviation and resource conservation, rather than being introduced a-priori.
3. While recognizing the importance of resource conservation for future production, TAC understands that natural resources management research should also take into account the off-site impacts of on-site practices through, for example, silted reservoirs, degraded water, and threats to human and environmental health. One consequence of this point of view is the need for a watershed-based, integrated approach to natural resources management research, especially for work on soil and water management. This approach includes the study of private and social benefits and costs and the design of institutional mechanisms for compensatory actions at the watershed level.
