Sustainable use of renewable resources, Chapter 2.1

We consider here optimal use patterns for renewable resources and address the problem of optimal use of renewable resources under a variety of assumptions both about the nature of the economy in which these resources are embedded and about the objective of that economy. Although we focus here on the technical economic issues of defining and characterizing paths which are optimal in various senses, in the presence of renewable resources, one should not loose sight of the very real motivation underlying these exercises: many of the earth's most important biological and ecological resources are renewable, so that in their management we confront the fundamental choice which underlies this paper, namely their extinction, or their preservation as viable species.