ABSTRACT
The use of natural resources plays a central role in most countries of the Global South. Most people use natural resources for meeting basic needs and realising human rights, such as the rights to life, food, water or health. The use of natural resources is also central to economic activities of the private sector and economic development strategies of countries. The changing understanding of sustainable development over time can be seen in parallel to the changes affecting natural resource use policy and practice in the past few decades. The expansion of natural resources use is linked to the search for new economic opportunities that lead to the creation of new markets, as in the case of carbon trading. One of the significant challenges in large-scale natural resource use is investment. Diminishing public investments have had the impact of conversely increasing the role and visibility of the private sector.
