Earth’s natural 

resources include air, water, soil, minerals, fuels, plants, and animals. Conservation is the

All the things we need to survive, such as food, water, air, and shelter, come from natural resources.
Some of these resources, like small plants, can be replaced quickly after they are used. Others, like large
trees, take a long time to replace. These are renewable resources.

Other resources, such as fossil fuels, cannot be replaced at all. Once they are used up, they are gone
forever. These are non-renewable resources.

People often waste natural resources. Animals are overhunted. Forests are cleared, exposing the land to
wind and water damage. Fertile soil is exhausted and lost to erosion because of poor farming practices.
Fuel supplies are depleted. Water and air are polluted.

If resources are carelessly managed, many will be used up. If used wisely and efficiently, however,
renewable resources will last much longer. Through conservation, people can reduce waste and manage
natural resources wisely.

The population of human beings has grown enormously in the past two centuries. Billions of people use
up resources quickly as they eat food, build houses, produce goods, and burn fuel
for transportation and electricity. The continuation of life as we know it depends on the careful use of
natural resources.

The need to conserve resources often conflicts with other needs. For some people, a wooded area may
be a good place to put a farm. A timber company may want to harvest the area’s trees
for construction materials. A business may want to build a factory or shopping mall on the land.

All these needs are valid, but sometimes the plants and animals that live in the area are forgotten. The
benefits of development need to be weighed against the harm to animals that may be forced to find
new habitats, the depletion of resources we may want in the future (such as water or timber), or damage
to resources we use today.

Development and conservation can coexist in harmony. When we use the environment in ways

Forests

A forest is a large area covered with trees grouped so their foliage shades the ground.
Every continent except Antarctica has forests, from the evergreen-filled boreal forests of the north
to mangrove forests in tropical wetlands. Forests are home to more than two-thirds of all known
land species. Tropical rainforests are especially rich in biodiversity.

Forests provide habitats for animals and plants. They store carbon, helping reduce global warming. They
protect the soil by reducing runoff. They add nutrients to the soil through the leaf litter. They provide
people with lumber and firewood.

Deforestation is the process of clearing away forests by cutting them down or burning them. People clear
forests to use the wood, or to make way for farming or development. Each year, Earth loses about 14.6
million hectares (36 million acres) of forest to deforestation—an area about the size of the U.S. state of
New York.

Deforestation destroys wildlife habitats and increases soil erosion. It also releases greenhouse gases into
the atmosphere, contributing to global warming. Deforestation accounts for 15 percent of the world’s
greenhouse gas emissions. Deforestation also harms the people who rely on forests for their
survival, hunting, and gathering, harvesting forest products, or using timber for firewood.
About half of all the forests on Earth are in the tropics—an area that circles the globe near the Equator.
Although tropical forests cover fewer than 6 percent of the world’s land area, they are home to about 80
percent of the world’s documented species. For example, more than 500 different species of trees live in
the forests on the small U.S. island of Puerto Rico in the Caribbean Sea.

Tropical forests give us many valuable products, including woods like mahogany and teak, rubber, fruits,
nuts, and flowers. Many of the medicines we use today come from plants found only in tropical
rainforests. These include quinine, a malaria drug; curare, an anesthetic used in surgery; and rosy
periwinkle, which is used to treat certain types of cancer.

Sustainable forestry practices are critical for ensuring we have these resources well into the future. One
of these practices is leaving some trees to die and decay naturally in the forest. This “deadwood” builds
up the soil. Other sustainable forestry methods include using low-impact logging practices, harvesting
with natural regeneration in mind, and avoiding certain logging techniques, such as removing all the high-
value trees or all the largest trees from a forest.

Trees can also be conserved if consumers recycle. People in China and Mexico, for example, reuse much
of their wastepaper, including writing paper, wrapping paper, and cardboard. If half the world’s paper were
recycled, much of the worldwide demand for new paper would be fulfilled, saving many of Earth’s trees.
We can also replace some wood products with alternatives like bamboo, which is a type of grass.

Soil

Soil is vital to food production. We need high-quality soil to grow the crops we eat and feed livestock. Soil
is also important to plants that grow in the wild. Many other types of conservation efforts, such as plant
conservation and animal conservation, depend on soil conservation.

Poor farming methods, such as repeatedly planting the same crop in the same place, called monoculture,
deplete nutrients in the soil. Soil erosion by water and wind increases when farmers plow up and down
hills.

One soil conservation method is called contour strip cropping. Several crops, such as corn, wheat,
and clover, are planted in alternating strips across a slope or the path of the prevailing wind. Different
crops, with different root systems and leaves, help slow erosion.

Harvesting all the trees from a large area, a practice called clearcutting increases the chances of losing
productive topsoil to wind and water erosion. Selective harvesting—the practice of removing individual
trees or small groups of trees—leaves other trees standing to anchor the soil.

Biodiversity

Biodiversity is the variety of living things that populate Earth. The products and benefits we get from
nature rely on biodiversity. We need a rich mixture of living things to provide food, building materials, and
medicines, as well as to maintain a clean and healthy landscape.

When a species becomes extinct, it is lost to the world forever. Scientists estimate that the current rate of
extinction is 1,000 times the natural rate. Through hunting, pollution, habitat destruction, and contribution
to global warming, people are speeding up the loss of biodiversity at an alarming rate.

It’s hard to know how many species are going extinct because the total number of species is unknown.
Scientists discover thousands of new species every year. For example, after looking at just 19 trees in
Panama, scientists found 1,200 different species of beetles—80 percent of them unknown to science at
the time. Based on various estimates of the number of species on Earth, we could be losing anywhere
from 200 to 100,000 species each year.