“An individual should consider the natural resources as a gift from nature that must be distributed among other individuals in accordance with the elastic limit of nature, while maintaining the desire to necessity equilibrium.”
Natural resources in raw form must be dealt with as the boosters for societal effectiveness, i.e. considered useful if used in line with the NEPs. Their static price (i.e. in the form and place where they are found in abundance) must be zero (i.e. no one can claim to be the owner of a natural resource and take a profit on that basis; its price is determined solely by the cost of the steps it undergoes, i.e. extraction, purification, transportation, processing etc.), with only the costs of extraction, transportation, processing etc. taken into account while assigning them a reasonable status (general demand level is exempted, while the real demand is determined while taking into account the NEPs and the necessity to desire ratio) (this in turn will be helpful in maintaining the elastic limit of nature). To understand this, let’s take an example of a forest: anyone in need can go and get a tree from it, and it is up to him whether he cuts and transports it himself; if he uses the services of others for that, then he pays for the services, not for the tree. This is only possible in an ideal society, as there the resources are used only as per requirement, i.e. there is no abuse or overuse, only legitimate use. (In practice, the price of a natural resource can be checked by a step-by-step cost audit, i.e. by adding up the cost of each step it has undergone (extraction, purification, transportation, processing); anything charged beyond this sum is a profit taken for the resource itself.) Hence, the distribution among individuals is by need, i.e. each one takes as per his requirement in line with the NEPs, while which resources are drawn upon first is decided by their priority and efficiency level (discussed below).
From What About the Gifts of Nature?.
