Juggling Environmental and Economic Goals in Natural Resource Value Chains: Apples and Oranges? (Presentation)

Brook Johnson of NCBA/CLUSA presented “Juggling Environmental and Economic Goals in Natural Resource Value Chains: Apples and Oranges?” The seminar was the 45th installment of the Linking Small Firms to Competitiveness Strategies Breakfast Seminar Series sponsored by the USAID Microenterprise Development office.

Mr. Johnson presented the various value chain programs and Natural Resource Management (NRM) activities in which NCBA/CLUSA is presently involved. He discussed the Nature-Wealth-Power model and expressed the importance of not allowing the Wealth component to overshadow the others. In particular, with wealth and power, it is critical to have both ownership and valuation, for if you have one without the other the environmental consequences can be disastrous. Mr. Johnson shared examples of successful interventions, such as those with karaya gum and baobab trees in Senegal. Mr. Johnson closed with a comparison of value chain project approaches and NWP project approaches and deduced that the two are not apples and oranges but simply apples of different varieties.