policies: to pursue an even application of sustainable urban
planning. Within the wealthier nations these options remain still
available: to develop and reduce consumption of ‘finite’ ‘renew-
able’ and ‘heritage’ resources, and increase the uptake of ‘free-
flow’ resources progressively, as strategic choices. The following
four paragraphs review these principles on a neomodern ‘work-
with and work-around’ basis.Conservative utilization of finite resources (refer to box 3.2 previously
in this chapter) requires that as irreplaceable fossil fuels and min-
erals are ‘exploited’, which is inevitably the case, this is carried
out in a way which avoids balance-sheet demands to cut-and-run
with the easily liquidated 10 or 20 per cent of such resources.
For example: that mining operatives be constrained to glean their
winnings patch by patch, abstracting these once-only resources as
thoroughly as 80 per cent, all the while practising toxic waste con-
tainment and landscape restoration. The challenge to manage-
ment is to set aside the ‘that leaves little margin for profit’
reasoning. Delay will lead to accusations that bureaucracy is
impeding business; yet strategic ‘delay’ can be advo-
cated for finite resource utilization on the basis that
at some point of time in the future there will arise an
optimal ‘window of opportunity’ and it is then, not
imperatively now, that the winning of a non-renew-
able resource should proceed. It is simply no longer
sensible (it never was) for nations to allow profligate
finite resource abstraction, inefficient finite resource
consumption, and widespread mineral waste by-
product abandonment. The utilization of finite resources, principally involving
once-only access to fossil-fuel stocks and minerals (and for practical purposes,
ancient indigenous forests), should be recognized as ‘belonging to society’, even
though they frequently occur on or under freehold title. Communities must reg-
ulate access to these resources carefully and conservatively, and require them to
be mined and used efficiently. Current procedures for winning the easily extracted
portions thus impairing future access to the balance left in the ground, must be
realigned toward efficiency in finite resource utilization, finite resource substitu-
tion, and a curtailment of rates of finite resource uptake.
Summary stricture:manage and control the uptake of utilized-only-once finite, irreplaceable, earth-
bound resources ‘conservatively’.Sustainable engagement and use of renewable resources (see box 3.2) is a matter of prac-
tising the life-holding stewardship of soil, water, air and indigenous flora and
fauna. Refurbishment and renewal makes plain ordinary common sense andis
sound longer-term business practice. Historically there has occurred a virtual
‘mining’ of agricultural soils, a heating, polluting and eutrophication of inland104 Practice
At the crudest level of
abstraction, a nation
‘develops’ if its gross
national product per
capita increases. Yet if a
nation so develops, along
the lines of New
Zealand’s one-off
exploitation of native
forest resources,
Australia’s one-off
uptake of ground-water,
Alaska’s inflow of dollars
to clean up oil spills, or
the Philippines’
acceptance of toxic
industrialization, then
the end result is
inevitably a sorry mess,
with an eventual
reduction to the quality
of life.