Risk and uncertainty in environmental and resource economics: insights from an international conference at Wageningen, June 2002

Risk in agriculture and natural resource management, as in life, is everywhere. But dealing with it systematically, whether for farmers, other natural resource managers, researchers, or anyone, can be challenging. A conference on Risk and Uncertainty in Environmental and Resource Economics was held in June 2002 in Wageningen. The problems covered included perceptions of, and attitudes to risk; approaches to risk management; precautionary approaches; and approaches taken to address irreversibilities under uncertainty and learning. The predominant empirical concern was with risks surrounding climate change, while there was considerable emphasis on natural resource management topics including agriculture. The overwhelming geographic perspectives taken were European or global. There is clearly yet no grand harmonization of approaches to dealing with the lack of certainty in environmental and resource management matters of contemporary and future concern. But some structure of approaches emerged out of the conference presentations, and the key elements of this structure, related to recognizing irreversibility when it prevails and dealing with risk aversion when it is relevant, are highlighted.