Management of Natural Resources and Environment

Soil, water and vegetation are the three basic natural resources. The survival of God’s creation depends upon them and nature has provided them as assets to human beings. The management of natural resources to meet people’s requirements has been practiced since the pre-Vedic era. Farmers were ranked high in the social system and village management was in their hands. They gained this knowledge and developed skill through experience and learning by doing. No doubt, the human life is depends on natural resources, but they are also dependent on humans for their sustainability. In nature there are ways and means, which ensure a balance between the various natural resources. However, advancement of human activities and excessive use of natural resources has created imbalance between the two. Their use / exploitation have far exceeded their natural replenishment rates. Industrialization and various other developmental processes have added to the problem by enhancing pollution and global temperature and today the very future of mother earth is at stake. The most important resources affected are water, land and air. While planned development of resources brings in prosperity, the indiscriminate exploitation of nature leads to destruction of environment and degradation of resources. Natural resource management specifically focuses on a scientific and technical understanding of resources and ecology and the life supporting capacity of these resources. Its emphasis on sustainability can be traced back to early attempts to understand the ecological nature of American rangelands in the late 19th century and the resource conservation movement of the same time. This type of analysis coalesced in the 20th century and took on a more holistic, national and even global form culminating in Brundtland Commission and the advocacy of sustainable development.