Conservation

I

Introduction

Conservation, sustainable use and protection of natural resources including plants, animals, mineral deposits, soils, clean water, clean air, and fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum, and natural gas. Natural resources are grouped into two categories, renewable and nonrenewable. A renewable resource is one that may be replaced over time by natural processes, such as fish populations or natural vegetation, or is inexhaustible, such as solar energy. The goal of renewable resource conservation is to ensure that such resources are not consumed faster than they are replaced. Nonrenewable resources are those in limited supply that cannot be replaced or can be replaced only over extremely long periods of time. Nonrenewable resources include fossil fuels and mineral deposits, such as iron ore and gold ore. Conservation activities for nonrenewable resources focus on maintaining an adequate supply of these resources well into the future.

Natural resources are conserved for their biological, economic, and recreational values, as well as their natural beauty and importance to local cultures. For example, tropical rain forests are protected for their important role in both global ecology and the economic livelihood of the local culture; a coral reef may be protected for its recreational value for scuba divers; and a scenic river may be protected for its natural beauty.

Conservation conflicts arise when natural-resource shortages develop in the face of steadily increasing demands from a growing human population. Controversy frequently surrounds how a resource should be used, or allocated, and for whom. For example, a river may supply water for agricultural irrigation, habitat for fish, and water-generated electricity for a factory. Farmers, fishers, and industry leaders vie for unrestricted access to this river, but such freedom could destroy the resource, and conservation methods are necessary to protect the river for future use.

Conflicts worsen when a natural resource crosses political boundaries. For example, the headwaters, or source, of a major river may be located in a different country than the country through which the river flows. There is no guarantee that the river source will be protected to accommodate resource needs downstream. In addition, the way in which one natural resource is managed has a direct effect upon other natural resources. Cutting down a forest near a river, for instance, increases erosion, the wearing away of topsoil, and can lead to flooding. Eroded soil and silt cloud the river and adversely affect many organisms such as fish and important aquatic plants that require clean, clear freshwater for survival.

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II

Methods of Conservation

The challenge of conservation is to understand the complex connections among natural resources and balance resource use with protection to ensure an adequate supply for future generations. In order to accomplish this goal, a variety of conservation methods are used. These include reducing consumption of resources; protecting them from contamination or pollution; reusing or recycling resources when possible; and fully protecting, or preserving, resources.

Consumption of natural resources rises dramatically every year as the human population increases and standards of living rise. From 1950 to 2000 the world population more than doubled to 6 billion people, with nearly 80 percent living in developing, or poorer, nations. The large, developed nations, however, are responsible for the greatest consumption of natural resources because of their high standards of living. For instance, the average American consumes as much energy as 27 Filipinos or 370 Ethiopians. Conservation education and the thoughtful use of resources is necessary in the developed countries to reduce natural-resource consumption. For example, reducing the high demand for tropical hardwoods such as teak and mahogany in the United States and Japan would slow the rate of tropical forest destruction.

To protect natural resources from pollution, individuals, industries, and governments have many obligations. These include prohibiting or limiting the use of pesticides and other toxic chemicals, limiting wastewater and airborne pollutants, preventing the production of radioactive materials, and regulating drilling and transportation of petroleum products. Failure to do so results in contaminated air, soil, rivers, plants, and animals. For example, if governments required that all oil tankers be fitted with double-layered hulls, the damages to fisheries and wildlife from the many oil spills of the 20th century, such as the 1967 Torrey Canyon oil spill in the English Channel, may have been reduced.

In many cases it is possible to reuse or recycle resources to reduce waste and resource consumption and conserve the energy needed to produce consumer products. For example, paper, glass, freon (a refrigerant gas), aluminum, metal scrap, and motor oil can all be recycled. A preventative measure called precycling, a general term for designing more durable, recyclable products such as reusable packaging, encourages reuse. Many states in the United States have established mandatory recycling laws in an attempt to reduce waste and consumption.

Some resources are so unique or valuable that they are protected from activities that would destroy or degrade them. For example, national parks and wilderness areas are protected from logging or mining in the United States because such activities would reduce the economic, recreational, and aesthetic values of the resource. Forests and wetlands (areas with high soil moisture or surface water) may be protected from development because they enhance air and water quality and provide habitat for a wide variety of plants and animals. Unfortunately, these areas are often threatened with development because it is difficult to measure the economic benefits of cleaner air, cleaner water, and the many other environmental benefits of these ecosystems (the plants and animals of a natural community and their physical environment).

III

Current Types of Conservation Issues

There are a variety of basic conservation methods used to protect global natural resources. Although each resource has a unique set of conservation problems and solutions, all resources are interconnected in a complex and little-understood web. Scientists have learned that damaging one thread of the web may weaken the entire structure. It is important that this connectivity be addressed in the search for solutions to resource shortages. It would be impractical to work toward the conservation of soil, for instance, without considering the needs and effects of nearby water and vegetation resources (see Environment).

A

Biodiversity Conservation

Biodiversity, or biological diversity, denotes the number and variety of different organisms and ecosystems in a certain area. Preserving biodiversity is essential for ecosystems to respond flexibly to damage or change. For example, a single-species corn crop may be quickly destroyed by a certain insect or disease, but if several different species of corn are planted in the field, some of them may resist the insect or disease and survive. The same principle applies to natural areas, which adapt to natural environmental changes such as wildfire, drought, or disease because of the biodiversity that has evolved in the area over thousands, or even millions, of years. For example, many forests, such as those that burned in the 1988 fires in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, are able to quickly regenerate because many of the plants that thrive there have adapted to fire. Some trees, such as lodgepole pine, may even require fire to aid in reproduction. These trees produce cones that are opened by extreme heat. The fire opens the cones and the seeds are then released into the soil.

Humans benefit greatly from the many medicines, crops, and other products that biodiversity provides. As many as 40 percent of our modern pharmaceutical medicines are derived from plants or animals. For instance, a small plant from Madagascar, the rosy periwinkle, produces substances that are effective in fighting two deadly cancers, Hodgkin’s disease and leukemia.

Unfortunately, human activities have greatly reduced biodiversity around the world. The 20th century encompasses one of the greatest waves of extinction, or elimination of species, to occur on the planet. The greatest threat to biodiversity is loss of habitat as humans develop land for agriculture, grazing livestock, industry, and habitation. The most drastic damage has occurred in the tropical rain forests, which cover less than seven percent of the Earth’s surface but contain well over half of the planet’s biodiversity. Only 8 percent of the rain forests in Madagascar, home of the rosy periwinkle, remain intact.

Several nations have laws protecting endangered species. An international treaty, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), went into effect in 1975 and outlawed trade of endangered animals and animal parts. In the United States, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) was enacted in 1973 to protect endangered or threatened species and their habitats. A new scientific field, conservation biology, studies ways to stop the destruction of biodiversity and restore natural habitats.

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