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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
The fundamental scarcity problem … is that as the environment is increasingly being exploited for one set of uses (e.g. to provide sources of raw material and energy, and to assimilate additional waste), the quality of the environment may deteriorate. The consequence is an increasing relative scarcity of essential natural services and ecological functions … Although the loss of these essential natural services as a result of environmental degradation is not directly reflected in market outcomes, it nevertheless has a major effect in the form of economic scarcity. In other words, if ‘the environment is regarded as a scarce resource,’ then the ‘deterioration of the environment is also an economic problem.’
(Barbier 1989, pp. 96–97)Introduction
The purpose of this final chapter is to draw together the major “scarcity and frontier” themes of this book to examine the critical question: is the world economy today on the verge of a new era of resource-based development?
As previous chapters have indicated, finding and exploiting new sources, or frontiers, of natural resources has been an important aspect of economic development throughout history. This includes both “horizontally extensive” frontiers such as land for agricultural-based activities and frontiers that extend “vertically downwards” in terms of mineral resources for extractive activities.
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