Two and a half billion people are affected directly on a day-to-day basis by the allocation and use of purely local resources. Yet 'official' development economics has concentrated on headline international issues and only recently begun to take account of the dependence of poor countries on their natural resources, the link between acute poverty and environmental degradation, and the problems associated with the management of local common property such as soil and soil cover, water, forests and their products, animals and fisheries.

In these two volumes, expert contributors provide a set of authoritative studies of emerging development issues, ranging from foundational matters to case studies. They address both analytic and empirical issues on the role of environmental resources in the development process, presenting explanations of existing situations and policies for the future. A wealth of interests and backgrounds is represented, beyond the confines of environmental economics proper; and this is reflected in the cross-fertilization between papers. In order to make these materials suitable for teaching purposes, authors have been encouraged to survey their topics rather than present their most recent findings.