Do you know what is natural resources exploitation? What does it consist of? What are those resources and how are they exploited? Well, in principle, it is about the human being taking the resources that nature offers him and using them to satisfy his needs, but there is much more that he should know.
Exploitation of natural resources
The environment provides a huge amount of natural resources as a basis for human development, that are used to improve the prosperity and conservation of the living beings that live in our world. These kinds of resources are what have contributed so that all living beings, mainly human beings, have been able to achieve an unbeatable quality of life and have also allowed us to create new technologies.
However, what is certain about our relationship with the environment is that we are close to a moment in which our dependence on natural resources is absolute and we are not managing them in the way that we should be doing, so that, if If we continue to exploit them at the levels we currently do, we will deplete them and nature will be unable to give us more.
What are natural resources?
Natural resources are wealth and products that are obtained directly from nature. These are resources that are essential for the progress of human beings and innumerable living beings, because they provide us with food and are used to obtain the energy that is required for our way of life.
These natural resources can be divided into 3 classes, depending on the possibility they have of changing in the environment:
Inexhaustible natural resources
They are those natural resources that are so abundant that, no matter how much of them is exploited, they will never be exhausted. That is, they can be used constantly, without disappearing. Examples of this are the air, geothermal energy, the movement of the tides or sunlight.
renewable natural resources
These are those resources that can be replaced. This means that they are the natural resources that are likely to regenerate as long as their exploitation is carried out in a sustainable way. These are natural riches that have the ability to regenerate and if they are used according to nature itself, they can be used over a long period of time.
But, on the contrary, if they are extracted in large quantities and without control, without taking into account their ability to regenerate, then they will become extinct indefinitely. Some examples of this class of resources are biofuels, wood, agricultural products, plants and water.
Non-renewable natural resources
They are the natural resources that have a limitation of their use, so that once they are used, they disappear. The reason for this is particularly because they can either be regenerated or they do but it is extremely slow. Several examples of this type of natural resources are nuclear energy, oil, gas, coal and aquifers.
What is the exploitation of the environment?
The notion of exploitation of natural resources, as a basis for human development, is known as the benefit obtained from the riches and services that nature provides us. These are activities that extract those resources every day to sustain and improve our quality of life as a society.
The problem is that the population that currently owns our planet is facing an ecological imbalance on a very large scale, because the actions on the environment that we carry out to extract some of these natural resources are causing a great repercussion effect. negative in the Types of Biodiversity of the world. So the problem is not getting the resources we mine, but how much we mine and how often we mine.
This type of activity is usually called overexploitation of resources, and is basically a natural resource extraction disproportionately or lack of administration or mismanagement of the exploitation of natural resources, which directly affects the environment in which we live, and, consequently, equally affects the flora and fauna, in general, everyone living beings, including humans.
This means that instead of carrying out an operation to exploit the resources that our natural environment provides us in a conscious way, what we actually do is exploit them beyond their existence in a senseless way.
In this way, what can be affirmed is that human beings have a special ability to exploit and be able to take advantage of a large number of materials and means that benefit them in their progress and way of life. But even so, and despite all the advances in technology, social and even cultural, we have not been able to achieve the form of exploitation without causing damage to the environment that is what provides us with all those resources.
Types of exploitation of natural resources exist and examples
The exploitation of natural resources it can be seen to a great extent in the activities that are performed on a daily basis for the maintenance and progress of human society. Even so, a huge portion of all the exploitation practices that are carried out today unfortunately do not take into account the impact they cause on nature or if it has the capacity to regenerate, because we are overexploiting natural resources.
Human beings have dedicated ourselves to extracting natural resources in enormous proportions, unnecessarily and, practically, they are regulations, overestimating the capacity that nature possesses to regenerate itself and increasing the advance of its degradation, which is very accelerated due to of the large number of activities that pollute and that are also carried out by men.
The drawback is that a large portion of the population does not know the current situation of several of the resources that we exploit. This situation encourages those who are constantly exploiting these resources, because the lack of knowledge makes us not worry about imposing regulations that prevent them from doing it the way they have been exploiting those resources.
Here are some of the kinds of natural resource exploitation that are threatening nature conservation:
Deforestation
This is an excellent example of overexploitation of natural resources. The Causes of Deforestation They begin with the indiscriminate felling of trees and the disappearance of forest groups, which at first was a practice through which only certain trees that were previously selected were felled, according to the use for which they were intended in the future. , as could be the case of obtaining wood for the manufacture of doors or furniture.
But today the serious problem that has spread with respect to this kind of natural resources exploitation, finding ourselves at a time when priority is being given to needs that do not make much sense, instead of giving priority to the survival of many species of flora and fauna, in some areas of great environmental importance, making the natural habitats in which the planet's wildlife develops.
If we want to find a clear example of the explanation we are giving, we have it with the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, which has been reduced by half in the last two decades, due to the interest and the market price that the wood has acquired. exotic, such as sajo, cuangare, quebracho and the always valued mahogany. The reason this has happened is that, despite the fact that there is an annual exploitation quota for this type of tree by law, most of the companies dedicated to this activity do not respect it.
These companies cut down more than is allowed and sell the surplus wood on the black market. But the overexploitation of forests and jungles is not only carried out for the interest in wood, there are cases in which a large extension of forest masses, which have an important ecological interest, have been cut down in order to obtain more land to carry out agricultural activities, from which a great economic benefit is obtained.
This is what has happened in the subtropical forests of Southeast Asia, where the forests are being replaced by palm plantations, from which the oil is then made, which is used as a raw material in the manufacture of many products that are they use daily. Mostly these forests contain a large number of animals, insects, plants and many other living beings that are endemic to that area, but that is being destroyed by man and pushing many species of living beings to the danger of extinction, for the sole reason lure of greed
Fishing
This is another model of the exploitation of natural resources. It is certainly an economic activity that dates back to ancient times, in the same way as hunting. But for about two or three decades, the schools of fish in our seas and oceans have been declining in proportions that are truly alarming, and this is so, essentially, due to overfishing that has been carried out, using resources and technologies that they have prevented nature from being able to make use of its capacity for regeneration and repopulation.
So with overfishing activities, and even with certain commercial fishing techniques, many of the marine species are in danger. The most affected fish are monkfish, tuna, anchovies, sardines, cod and hake, among many others.
Most species of fish have seen their numbers drop dramatically and because they are for direct consumption by humans. But those that are not consumed are also processed for the production of other products, such as animal feed, or as fresh food for other fish in fish farms.
The scientifically proven fact that populations of marine species are declining by leaps and bounds is highly worrying, so we should take action and start monitoring fishing quotas more strictly. If this sustained level of exploitation continues, it is certain that in less than 30 years many species will have become extinct and within another 50 years, the rest will have become extinct.
Other types of exploitation of natural resources
Perhaps the most polluting are the mining operations, about which it is not necessary to delve, since practically everyone knows them. Diamonds, rubies, gold, silver, iron, gas, oil and all natural mineral products that are required in industry, such as coltan and other rare earths, the exploitation of which not only pollutes and causes Environmental Deterioration, but has been the cause of wars and innumerable deaths, especially in Africa.
Without leaving aside the farms for agricultural purposes, which are increasing due to population growth and irresponsible and unsustainable practices that deplete the land.
The truth is that the natural resources exploitation, as we have been practicing, has produced the extinction of many living beings and if it continues at this same level, in a few years we will also have extinguished some of those resources and humanity will have to think of other alternatives to satisfy the current needs.
