Abstract
A great deal of research has been conducted on the development of resource management and conservation in the British Empire. However, few studies explain how much and in what way colonial science impacted the beginning of the global governance of natural resources. This paper explores the process by which the global resource management scheme was designed in the United Nations and considers the impact of conservation ideas and practices in the British Empire. It mainly deals with the United Nations Scientific Conference on the Conservation and Utilization of Resources (hereafter UNSCCUR), which was held at Lake Success, New York in 1949. This conference brought together over 700 experts from 52 countries.
Examining the agendas of the conference, this study suggests that the principal purpose of the UNSCCUR was an international exchange of ideas and experiences among experts, and the application of advanced scientific technologies to resource management all over the world. One of the critical points of this conference was the argument about natural resources in tropical, less-developed countries. There are two reasons why this topic was emphasized in the framework of global resource management and conservation. First, most natural resources in tropical regions were still under-developed, therefore it was essential, both nationally and internationally, to devise controls for long-term, efficient use. Secondly, Neo-Malthusian arguments and apocalyptic narratives, which were based on the rapid population growth in the less-developed countries, were widespread in scientific societies.
Specifically, I pay attention to the discourse of the British and other European colonial and ex-colonial scientists in technical departments or research institutes, and explore how they recognized the local conditions, results and limits of the applied conservation measures. Their perspectives and experiences were utilized for preparing the blueprint for the technical assistance programs to the less-developed countries, on which the UN embarked.
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Notes
- 1.
Four experts from the US and one each from Lebanon, Venezuela, Sweden, France, India, Chile, Poland and the UK were appointed (UN 1950, p. xxv).
- 2.
For example, Julius A. Krug, US Secretary of the Interior, stated that ‘resources plus technical and scientific skill plus capital investment equal economic development’ (UN 1950, p. 5).
- 3.
See especially the papers and discussion at the session on ‘Soil Survey and Research in Relation to Soil Conservation’ (UN 1951, pp. 113–171).
- 4.
The questionnaire covers the following points: constitution of the family, and age, sex, clan, tribe and religion of its members; medical data; housing, sanitation and water supplies; movements; income and expenditures; food grown on family holdings; land tenure, utilization and agriculture; livestock; education, marketing and labour employed by the sample family (Clegg 1951).
- 5.
Some British delegates emphasised the significance of the British institutions as international information centres, and showed rather negative attitude toward the FAO (UN 1951, p. 267).
- 6.
Proceedings of plenary meetings and six section meetings as well as the index were published between 1950 and 1953.
- 7.
The EPTA merged with the Special Fund to become the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 1966 although the decision to merge was made in 1965.
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Mizuno, S. (2017). Global Governance of Natural Resources and the British Empire: A Study on the United Nations Scientific Conference on the Conservation and Utilization of Resources, 1949. In: Joanaz de Melo, C., Vaz, E., Costa Pinto, L. (eds) Environmental History in the Making. Environmental History, vol 7. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41139-2_16
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