Sustainable management is a bit like being able to live off the interest from that account - without having to dip into the capital. The Resource Management Act 1991 Several laws have been introduced in the past decade to underpin the principle of sustainable management. The most important is the Resource Management Act. Elsewhere, each major resource is legislated for separately. It assumes that local communities are the best judges of their own environmental problems and how to go about dealing with them.
Most countries have more central government control.
Since the Resource Management Act became law in 1991 it has received a substantial amount of publicity. This is because almost every human activity has some impact on the environment. For some regional councils and territorial authorities a great amount of time has been focused on the practical aspects of making the Act work. The Resource Management Act is, first and foremost, a means of planning how the people of New Zealand are going to use, develop or protect natural and physical resources. The Act calls for a new attitude.