Causes of resource depletion

Over-consumption/excessive or unnecessary use of resources Non-equitable distribution of resources Overpopulation Slash and burn agricultural practices, currently occurring in many developing countries Technological and industrial development Erosion Irrigation Mining for oil and minerals Drainage of wetlands Forestry pollution and abuse of resource

[edit] Minerals and oil

Materials removed from the Earth are needed to provide humans with food, clothing, and housing and to continually upgrade the standard of living. Some of the materials needed are renewable resources, such as agricultural and forestry products, while others are nonrenewable, such as minerals. The USGS reported in Materials Flow and Sustainability (1998) that the number of renewable resources is decreasing, meanwhile there is an increasing demand for nonrenewable resources. Since 1900 the use of construction materials such as stone, sand, and gravel, has soared. The large-scale exploitation of minerals began in the Industrial Revolution around 1760 in England and has grown rapidly ever since. Todays economy is largely based on fossil fuels, minerals and oil. The value increases because of the large demand, but the supply is decreasing. This has resulted in more efforts to drill and search other territories. The environment is being abused and this depletion of resources is one way of showing the affects. Mining still pollutes the environment, only on a larger scale. The government has produced the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 in order to regulate certain aspects of mining but it is truly up to the individual states to regulate it.

[edit] Oil in the Arctic

Oil has become one of the top resources used in America. Drilling for oil has become a major issue. America is more abundant in coal but the effects on the atmosphere are far worse than oil. Geologists consider northern Alaska to be the last, untouched oil field in North America. Environmental experts are worried that oil and gas development will seriously harm the area. In 2002 the USGS assessed the NPRA and found a significantly greater supply of petroleum (5.9 to 13.2 billion barrels) than previously estimated. Only up to 5.6 billion barrels of this petroleum are technically and economically recoverable at existing market prices. The USGS suspects that there may be as much as 83.2 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered natural gas in the same area. Transportation of this gas to

markets would require a new pipeline. There is already a pipeline system in place for oil the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS), which lies between the NPRA and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The ANWR is a 19-million-acre (77,000 km2) area of wilderness along the Alaska-Canada border. It, too, is being considered for oil exploration, a move strongly opposed by environmentalists. The future of the refuge lies in the hands of the federal government. The administration of George H. W. Bush made drilling there a major foundation of the national energy policy. Under the Clinton administration oil and mineral development was prohibited within the wildlife refuge. In April 2002, following heated debate; the U.S. Senate killed a proposal by the administration of George W. Bush to let oil companies drill in ANWR. Republicans raised the issue again in the fall of 2003, citing the need for the nation to reduce its dependence on oil imported from the Middle East.[2]

[edit] Deforestation
Deforestation is the clearing of natural forests by logging or burning of trees and plants in a forested area.[3] As a result of deforestation, presently about one half of the forests that once covered the Earth have been destroyed.[4] It occurs for many different reasons, and it has several negative implications on the atmosphere and the quality of the land in and surrounding the forest. ' Causes' One of the main causes of deforestation is clearing forests for agricultural reasons. As the population of developing areas, especially near rainforests, increases, the need for land for farming becomes more and more important.[5] For most people, a forest has no value when its resources arent being used, so the incentives to deforest these areas outweigh the incentives to preserve the forests. For this reason, the economic value of the forests is very important for developing worlds.[6] Environmental impact Because deforestation is so extensive, it has made several significant impacts on the environment, including carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, changing the water cycle, an increase in soil erosion, and a decrease in biodiversity. Deforestation is often cited as a cause of global warming. Because trees and plants remove carbon dioxide and emit oxygen into the atmosphere, the reduction of forests contribute to about 12% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions.[7] One of the most pressing issues that deforestation creates is soil erosion. The removal of trees causes higher rates of erosion, increasing risks of landslides, which is a direct threat to many people living close to deforested areas.1 As forests get destroyed, so does the habitat for millions of animals. It is estimated that 80% of the worlds known biodiversity lives in the rainforests, and the destruction of these rainforests is accelerating extinction at an alarming rate.[8] Controlling Deforestation Efforts to control deforestation must be taken on a global scale. Organizations like the United Nations and the World Bank have started to create programs like Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) that works especially with developing countries to use subsidies or other incentives to encourage citizens to use the forest in a more sustainable way.[9] In addition to making sure that emissions from deforestation are kept to a minimum, an effort to educate people on sustainability and helping them to focus on the long-term risks is key to the success of

these programs.[10] Reforestation is also being encouraged in many countries in an attempt to repair the damage that deforestation has done.[11]

[edit] Wetlands
A wetland is a term used to describe areas that are often saturated by enough surface or groundwater to sustain vegetation that is usually adapted to saturated soil conditions, such as cattails, bulrushes, red maples, wild rice, blackberries, cranberries, and peat moss. Because some varieties of wetlands are rich in minerals and nutrients and provide many of the advantages of both land and water environments they contain diverse species and possibly even form a food chain. When human activities take away resources many species are affected. Many species act as an ecosystem. Years ago people assumed wetlands were useless so it was not a large concern when they were being dug up. Many people want to use them for developing homes etc. On the other side of the argument people believe the wetlands are a vital source for other life forms and a part of the life cycle. Wetlands provide services for: 1) Food and habitat 2) Improving water quality 3) Commercial fishing 4) Floodwater reduction 5) Shoreline stabilization 6) Recreation Some loss of wetlands resulted from natural causes such as erosion, sedimentation (the buildup of soil by the settling of fine particles over a long period of time), subsidence (the sinking of land because of diminishing underground water supplies), and a rise in the sea level. However, 95% of the losses since the 1970s have been caused by humans, especially by the conversion of wetlands to agricultural land. More than half (56%) the losses of coastal wetlands resulted from dredging for marinas, canals, port development, and, to some extent, from natural shoreline erosion. The conversion of wetlands causes the loss of natural pollutant sinks. The dramatic decline in wetlands globally suggests not only loss of habitat but also diminished water quality.

[edit] Erosion
Erosion is the process in which the materials of the Earth's crust are worn and carried away by wind, water, and other natural forces. The destruction of forest (deforestation)

and native grasses has allowed water and wind greater opportunity to erode the soil. Changes in river flow human activity have dramatically shifted the runoff patterns of water and the sediment load of rivers that deposit into lakes and oceans. Erosion has become a problem in much of the world in areas that are over farmed or where topsoil cannot be protected. Agricultural lands are the main source of eroded soil. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), approximately 20 percent of the nation's land is set aside for cropland. Three-quarters of this land is actively used to grow crops for harvesting. The remainder is used for pasture or is idled for various reasons. Demands on the Earth to feed growing populations and changes in the Earth's landscape caused by human activities have speeded up soil erosion. Soil erosion has increased to the point where it far exceeds the natural formation of new soil, and experts consider the problem to be of epidemic proportions.

Conservation movement
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search "Conservationist" redirects here. For the 1974 novel by Nadine Gordimer, see The Conservationist. Not to be confused with Conservatism.

The High Peaks Wilderness Area in the 6,000,000-acre (24,000 km2) Adirondack Park is a publicly protected area located in northeast New York.

Much attention has been given to preserving the natural characteristics of Hopetoun Falls, Australia, while allowing ample access for visitors.

The conservation movement, also known as nature conservation, is a political, environmental and a social movement that seeks to protect natural resources including plant and animal species as well as their habitat for the future. The early conservation movement included fisheries and wildlife management, water, soil conservation and sustainable forestry. The contemporary conservation movement has broadened from the early movement's emphasis on use of sustainable yield of natural resources and preservation of wilderness areas to include preservation of biodiversity. Some say the conservation movement is part of the broader and more far-reaching environmental movement, while others argue that they differ both in ideology and practice. Chiefly in the United States, conservation is seen as differing from environmentalism in that it aims to preserve natural resources expressly for their continued sustainable use by humans.[1] In other parts of the world conservation is used more broadly to include the setting aside of natural areas and the active protection of wildlife for their inherent value, as much as for any value they may have for humans. Environmental issues reemerged on the national agenda in 1970, with Republican Richard Nixon playing a major role, especially with his creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. The debates over the public lands and environmental politics played a supporting role in the decline of liberalism and the rise of modern conservatism. Although Americans consistently rank environmental issues as "important", polling data indicates that in the voting booth voters rank the environmental issues low relative to other political concerns. The growth of the Republican party's political power in the inland West (apart from the Pacific coast) was facilitated by the rise of popular opposition to public lands reform. Successful Democrats in the inland West and Alaska typically take more conservative positions on environmental issues than Democrats from the Coastal states. Taking the conservationist position, conservatives drew on new organizational networks of think tanks, industry groups, and citizen-oriented organizations, and they began to deploy new strategies that affirmed the rights of individuals to their property, to hunt and recreate, and to pursue happiness unencumbered by the federal government

Areas of concern
Deforestation and overpopulation are issues affecting all regions of the world. The consequent destruction of wildlife habitat has prompted the creation of conservation groups in other countries, some founded by local hunters who have witnessed declining wildlife populations first hand. Also, it was highly important for the conservation movement to solve problems of living conditions in the cities and the overpopulation of such places.

[edit] Boreal forest and the Arctic

The idea of incentive conservation is a modern one but its practice has clearly defended some of the sub Arctic wildernesses and the wildlife in those regions for thousands of

years, especially by indigenous peoples such as the Evenk, Yakut, Sami, Inuit and Cree. The fur trade and hunting by these peoples have preserved these regions for thousands of years. Ironically, the pressure now upon them comes from non-renewable resources such as oil, sometimes to make synthetic clothing which is advocated as a humane substitute for fur. (See Raccoon Dog for case study of the conservation of an animal through fur trade.) Similarly, in the case of the beaver, hunting and fur trade were thought to bring about the animal's demise, when in fact they were an integral part of its conservation. For many years children's books stated and still do, that the decline in the beaver population was due to the fur trade. In reality however, the decline in beaver numbers was because of habitat destruction and deforestation, as well as its continued persecution as a pest (it causes flooding). In Cree lands however, where the population valued the animal for meat and fur, it continued to thrive. The Inuit defend their relationship with the seal in response to outside critics.[13]

Progressive Era
Both Conservationism and Environmentalism appeared in political debates during the Progressive Era in the early 20th century. There were three main positions. The laissezfaire position held that owners of private propertyincluding lumber and mining companies, should be allowed to do anything they wished for their property[8]. The Conservationists, led by President Theodore Roosevelt and his close ally Gifford Pinchot, said that the laissez-faire approach was too wasteful and inefficient. In any case, they noted, most of the natural resources in the western states were already owned by the federal government. The best course of action, they argued, was a long-term plan devised by national experts to maximize the long-term economic benefits of natural resources. Environmentalism was the third position, led by John Muir (18381914). Muir's passion for nature made him the most influential American environmentalist. Muir preached that nature was sacred and humans are intruders who should look but not develop. He founded the Sierra Club and remains an icon of the environmentalist movement. He was primarily responsible for defining the environmentalist position, in the debate between Conservation and environmentalism. Environmentalism preached that nature was almost sacred, and that man was an intruder. It allowed for limited tourism (such as hiking), but opposed automobiles in national parks. It strenuously opposed timber cutting on most public lands, and vehemently denounced the dams that Roosevelt supported for water supplies, electricity and flood control. Especially controversial was the Hetch Hetchy dam in Yosemite National park, which Roosevelt approved, and which supplies the water supply of San Francisco.