Rajveer Mehta

Mayur Amode
WHY DO WE NEED TO MANAGE OUR
RESOURCES ?
human population increasing at a tremendous
rate due to improvement in health-care, the
demand for all resources is increasing at an
exponential rate. The management of natural
resources requires a long-term perspective so
that these will last for the generations to come
and will not merely be exploited to the hilt for
short term gains. This management should also
ensure equitable distribution of resources so that all,
and not just a handful of rich and powerful people,
benefit from the development of these resources.
Forests
i) Forests help to preserve biodiversity.
ii) Forests are natural habitats of plants and
animals.
iii) Forests provide timber, wood, fuel, medicines,
fodder, etc.
iv) Forests help to maintain ecological balance.
v) Forests help to control climate and rainfall.
vi) Forests help to prevent soil erosion and controls
floods.
vii) Forests help to maintain the oxygen – carbon
dioxide balance in nature.
Stakeholders of forests
People who are associated with forests directly
or indirectly are :
i) People living in and around forests depend
on forests for their livelihood.
ii) Industrialists who use the raw materials from
forests for manufacturing paper, medicines,
furniture etc.
iii) Forest Department of the Government who
owns the forests and controls the resources
from the forests.
iv) Nature and wild life organizations who want
to conserve and preserve forests.
People living in and around
forests
The local people need large quantities of firewood, small timber
and thatch. Bamboo is used to make slats for huts, and baskets
for collecting and storing food materials. Implements for
agriculture, fishing and hunting are largely made of wood, also
forests are sites for fishing and hunting. In addition to people
gathering fruits, nuts and medicines from the forests, their cattle
also graze in forest areas or feed on other fodder which is
collected from forests
Industrialists who use the
raw materials from forests
Industries would consider the forest as merely a source of raw
material for its factories. And huge interest-groups lobby the
government for access to these raw materials at artificially low
rates. Since these industries have a greater reach than the
Local people, they are not interested in the sustainability of the
Forest in one particular area.
Conservation of forests
Forests can be conserved by :
i) Afforestation – planting of more trees.
ii) Preventing or reducing deforestation.
iii) Preventing over grazing by cattle.
iv) By setting up wildlife sanctuaries, national parks, biosphere
reserves etc.
v) Undertaking social forestry programs like Van Mahotsav,
Chipko movement for planting and protecting trees on a
large scale.
Importance of wildlife
i) Wildlife helps to preserve biodiversity.
ii) Wild life helps to maintain food chains and food web.
iii) We get useful products from wild life like food, medicines,
leather, bones, honey, lace etc
Water is a basic necessity for all living things. We use
water for our daily needs, for agriculture,
transportation, construction of buildings, roads, dams
etc. Water is a natural habitat for aquatic organisms.
Human activities are affecting the availability of water
and causing pollution of water bodies
Disadvantages of dams
i) Social problems :-
ii) It displaces a large number of people who have to be
rehabilitated.
iii) Economic problems :- It is expensive and uses a huge
amount of public money.
iv) Environmental problems :- It causes deforestation and loss
of biodiversity
Water harvesting (Rain water
harvesting)
Water harvesting is collecting and storing rain water for future
use.
The common methods of water harvesting are :
i) Digging pits, ponds, lakes etc.
ii) Building small earthen dams or concrete check dams.
iii) Construction of dykes.
iv) Construction of reservoirs.
v) Construction of rooftop collecting units in houses
Coal and petroleum are fossil fuels formed by the
decomposition of dead plants and animals inside the
earth after several millions of years. They are non
renewable sources of energy. Petroleum reserves may
last for about 40 years and coal reserves may last for
about 200 years. Coal and petroleum contain carbon,
hydrogen, nitrogen and sulphur When they are burnt,
they release carbon dioxide and oxides of nitrogen and
sulphur Carbon dioxide is a green house gas which
causes global warming. Oxides of nitrogen and
sulphur combines with moisture in the air and
produces acid rain
It is controlling the use of resources in
such a way so as to provide for its
equitable and continuous availability not
only to the present generation without any
harmful impact on the environment. Four
advantages: Equitable distribution,
controlled exploitation, minimum wastage,
disposal of waste
What is an ecosystem ?
The ecosystem is the set of species in a given area that interact among
themselves, through processes such as predation, parasitism,
competition and symbiosis, and with their abiotic environment to
disintegrate and become part of cycles of energy and nutrients. The
species of the ecosystem, including bacteria, fungi, plants and animals,
are dependent on each other. The relationships between species and
their environment facilitate the flow of matter and energy within the
ecosystem
Alpha, beta and gamma
diversity
Robert Whittaker (1920-1980), American ecologist and
researcher of succession and vegetation gradients, proposed
three measures of ecosystem diversity: alpha (α), beta (β),
and gamma (γ).
Alpha is the diversity within an ecosystem which is generally
described as the number of species.
Beta diversity involves the comparison of different ecosystems in
environmental gradients, for example, in a mountainous area
within a coastal area. Beta diversity shows us the size of the
change of species from one ecosystem to another.
Gamma diversity refers to the total diversity of a region, i.e. the
geographic diversity. It is the sum of the alpha diversity of
various ecosystems.
Water cycle

The water that evaporates from the ocean with the sun's energy is
transported by the circulation of winds around the planet. Upon rising
over the contours of the mountains, it cools and becomes rain,
providing moisture to rain forests, jungles, grasslands and scrub. It
feeds streams, rivers, lakes, and groundwater before eventually
returning to the sea. On this long journey, it is absorbed by plants and
drunk by animals, which all require water as it constitutes between 55 –
80% of all living things
Nutrient cycles
Chemical elements that make up a living being, such as carbon, oxygen, nitrogen,
hydrogen, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, sulphur and many others, are
transported between living organisms and non-living components of the planet.
These elements are essential for the structure and function of living organisms.
Some will accumulate in them while they are alive and return to the soil and the
atmosphere when they die. Drastic changes in the dynamics of these cycles
produce pollution, eutrophication (surplus nutrient levels in wetlands) and ultimately
global climate change.Carbon is found in the atmosphere, biosphere, oceans and
sediments. Plants take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it into
carbohydrates and, in this form, a large part of global carbon is stored in forests and
soil. In the sea, many organisms use carbon to form their external skeletons and
shells. Carbon returns to the atmosphere through respiration of organisms, organic
decomposition, combustion, and volcanic eruptions. The other chemicals have
similar cycles
Energy flow

Living organisms require energy to perform the basic functions

of growth, reproduction and survival. Plants are primary
producers that convert the sun's energy into chemical energy
through photosynthesis. First, the molecule of chlorophyll
absorbs energy from light and splits water molecules into
hydrogen and oxygen. Secondly, carbon dioxide is converted
into carbohydrates (sugars), i.e. larger molecules composed of
carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Herbivores, as secondary
consumers, feed on the plants and derive nutrients and energy
from them. These are in turn passed on to carnivores and
decomposers. The flow of energy through living things is called a
trophic chain (from the Greek trophē, food), or food chain, and
each level passed along the chain is called a trophic level.
Succession
When the change of environment has been
total, as in the case of an eruption that
completely erases the original environment,
or when a completely new environment is
created, such as in the volcanic islands that
rise from the sea, the process is
called primary succession. When the change
has only been partial and some of the original
species remain, the process is
called secondary succession.
Ecosystem Management
 Consideration of the connections between different levels of biodiversity (genes,
species, populations, ecosystems, landscapes).

 Inclusion of appropriate spatial scales to include the relevant ecological processes;

definition of ecological boundaries rather than administrative boundaries.

 Acceptance of human society as part of the ecosystem; consideration of current

requirements for maintenance of environment in order to meet future needs.

 Emulation of natural disturbance regimes in order to maintain biodiversity.

 Maintenance of ecological integrity through the protection of viable populations,

patterns and processes of all native species.

 Consideration of appropriate time scales: Adoption of long-term planning.

 Introduction of management experiments with experimental design, including

adequate monitoring and documentation of the effects of the management, in order
to learn.

 Promotion of interagency coordination and communication with society

Restoration

we need to reconstruct their original characteristics. This

proposal may sound very straightforward, but it is not. First,
since the effects of human activity may have been felt for
hundreds or thousands of years, the original features of most
ecosystems are unknown: which species dominated the
landscape? in what abundance?, etc.
Secondly, it is necessary to have a good understanding of the
processes of natural disturbance and plant succession in the
region in order to reconstruct the soil, composition (types of
species) and structure (relative abundance) of plants and
animals that would restore the original functions of the
ecosystem.
The study of the processes of renewal of destroyed or
degraded ecosystems is known as restoration ecology.