The New Natural Resource Economy: Implementing the healthy environment/healthy economy paradigm in eastern Oregon

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe situation of rural America is in flux in the early twenty-first century, especially for communities with natural resource and agriculture-based economies dominated by industrialized commodity production. One noteworthy response has been the emergence in community development of the healthy environment/healthy economy paradigm. We use the term New Natural Resource Economy (NNRE) to characterize approaches to economic development based in the new paradigm. NNRE entails mainly small-scale entrepreneurs – the dominant business type in rural communities and nationally – who seek to meld ecology with economics. Here we report on a survey of NNRE entrepreneurs in eastern Oregon, asking and answering three questions: What is NNRE? Why is it important to rural communities? What challenges do NNRE entrepreneurs face?