short notes "Management of Natural Resources" by Nagraj Sir

short notes "Management of Natural Resources" by Nagraj Sir

• Natural Resources – Resources provided to us by nature soil, air, water, forests, wildlife, coal and petroleum are used by man for his survival.

• Types of Resources :

(a) Exhaustible : present in limited quantity e.g. coal petroleum.

(b) Inexhaustible : present in unlimited quantity e.g. air, water.

Reduce: This means that you use less. You save electricity by switching off unnecessary lights and fans. You save water by repairing leaky taps. You do not waste food.

Recycle: This means that you collect plastic, paper, glass and metal items and recycle these materials to make required things instead of synthesising or extracting fresh plastic, paper, glass or metal.

Reuse: This is actually even better than recycling because the process of recycling uses some energy. In the ‘reuse’ strategy, you simply use things again and again. Instead of throwing away used envelopes, you can reverse it and use it again. The plastic bottles in which you buy various food-items like jam or pickle can be used for storing things in the kitchen.

Sustainable development: The concept of sustainable development encourages forms of growth that meet current basic human needs, while preserving the resources for the needs of future generations

NEED TO MANAGE OUR RESOURCES

• Resources are limited: We need to manage our resources Because these are not unlimited and with the human population increasing at a tremendous rate due to improvement in health-care, the demand for all resources is increasing at an exponential rate.
• It damages our environment: Damage we cause to the environment while these resources are either extracted or used. For example, mining causes pollution because of the large amount of slag which is discarded for every tonne of metal extracted.

Stakeholders of forest:

1. People living in or around forest: They depend on forest produce for their living.
2. The forest Department of the Government : Which owns the land and controls the resources from forests.
3. The industrialists : Who use various forest produce as raw material, but are not dependent on the forest in any orie area.
4. The wildlife and nature enthusiasts: Who want to conserve nature in its pristine form.

FORESTS AND WILDLIFE :

Forests are ‘Biodiversity hotspots’. Hotspot means an area full of biological diversity.

The biodevrsity of an area can be measured by determining the number of species found there. The main aim of conservation is to try and preserve the biodiversity.

Conservation of biodiversity is important to maintain ecological stability.

• National Award for wildlife conservation – in the memory of Amrita Devi Bishnoi who lost her life in the protection of Khejri trees in Rajasthan along with 363 other people.
• Chipko Andolan : Movement originated in Garhwal in early 1970sthat was the result of a grassroot level effort to end the alienation of people from their forest.
• Protection of Sal forest in West Bengal in 1972.

COAL AND PETROLEUM

Fossil fuels, that is, coal and petroleum,  are important sources of energy for us.

Formation of Coal and petroleum: Coal and petroleum were formed from the degradation of bio-mass millions of years ago and hence these are resources that will be exhausted in the future no matter how carefully we use them. And then we would need to look for alternative sources of energy.

Water Harvesting

Generally, water harvesting is direct rainwater collection. This collected water could be stored for later use and recharged into the ground water again.

Watershed management emphasises scientific soil and water conservation in order to increase the biomass production.

Watershed management not only increases the production and income of the watershed community, but also mitigates droughts and floods and increases the life of the downstream dam and reservoirs.