A general model for promoting the integration of national natural resources management

A model is put forward to prescribe the processes and steps whereby governments can and should integrate their natural resources policies across the many different sectors involved. The model has developed from the analysis of policies for water resources, coastal zones and soil resources in OECD countries. Such a model can never be comprehensive but the one developed does help to pinpoint some of the reasons for the adverse impacts that occur where the appropriate institutional arrangements to promote policy integration are lacking. By stressing the links – or otherwise – between national policies and management practices on the ground it also highlights both the importance of having the appropriate data available to monitor policy integration, and the narrow range of policy instruments currently being deployed to minimise inter-sectoral conflict and thus to promote sustainable resources management.