Regulations to prevent people doing what they now do for pressing reasons are bound to fail. Local acceptability is most readily achieved by local participation in planning. The support of local leaders is essential while the participation of agencies that have the resources to implement the plan is also important.
Land is not the same everywhere
Land is, self-evidently, the other focus of land-use planning. Capital, labour, management skills and technology can be moved to where they are needed. Land cannot be moved, and different areas present different opportunities and different management problems. Nor are land resources unchanging: this is obvious in the case of climate and vegetation, but examples such as the depletion of water resources or the loss of soil by erosion or salinity are reminders that resources can be degraded, in some cases irreversibly. Good information about land resources is thus essential to land-use planning.