Sustainable Natural Resource Management

By practicing sustainable natural resource management, farmers, ranchers, and land developers protect the ecosystem by utilizing our natural resources, which control their over-usage. In addition, the management helps maintain the biodiversity of the land.

Managing our sustainable natural resources will ensure they are there for our children and their children. Conversely, the result of mismanagement can be devastating, as is evidenced in the current state of our environment globally and at home.

As land managers, whether appraising a small plot of land, or hundreds of square kilometers of the countryside, the goal is the same. That goal is to protect the resources that are part of every land area, whether that is water, soil, coal, forests, or energy.

What is sustainable use of resources?

Sustainable resources include lumber, food (onshore and off), soil, water, and energy. When you remove too much of any one of these products from the environment without a replacement plan, things can get out of balance and endanger future development.

Finding a balance between the raw materials that we use for the products consumed means resources must be replenished instead of being depleted. Management of our natural resources contributes to this process. It also aids everyone in the pipeline toward the goal of sustainability of our precious natural resources.

What is sustainable use of natural resources?

When asked what is sustainable use of natural resources is, you will get a different answer from a rancher, a farmer, or producer of lumber. For a farmer, sustainability is their land’s ability to support each year’s crops and to have enough water to bring a crop to market.

For those who produce lumber, sustainability is replanting seedlings after a stand of trees has been removed. To the rancher, sustainability is having enough grass and water for their herd at a price that does not make raising cattle prohibitive.

You get the picture, and managing our natural resources is no minor feat. It requires knowledge of many different laws and management methods that can prevent erosion, keep the water clean, and increase our development of timber, grassland, and food.

Who uses sustainable resources?

As do all of farmers, ranchers, timber growers, developers, business owners, and us use sustainable resources. We all eat, drink, and get merry on fermented wheat and hops. These are all made from sustainable natural resources.

Ranchers and farmers, who live close to the earth, take measures to sustain their crops and herds. Farmers can prevent erosion by using no-till, low till methods of farming. By preventing erosion, farmers and ranchers have better control of their land and water use of the land they manage.

As consumers, we can all do our part to be careful when using water, wasting food, and polluting our environment with trash. In addition, if we manage our products, we will not need as much product to replace what we have used in our daily consumption.

How using sustainable natural resources can save our ecosystem

Tilling and over tilling while planting the same crops, as opposed to crop rotation, can lead to soil erosion. It can also deplete the nutrients of the soil, which leads to decreased crop production. Crop rotation can heal the soil without heavy chemicals required to maintain farmland that regrows one crop.

Felling a stand of trees or plowing a field without considering erosion can and does affect our ecosystem. Likewise, large deposits of loose soil can clog streams and rivers and affect their water quality. So, whatever is done to our land can have a far-reaching effect on the earth, plants, and animals of the area where mismanagement occurs.

Sustainable natural resource management

As you can see, what is sustainable use of natural resources includes products that you use every day. From your local farmer to the angler who offers up the catch of the day, sustainable natural resource management works behind the scenes. It will ensure that future generations have the food, water, and raw materials for the products they need.

By considering our consumption rate, and the rate at which we can regrow and reproduce raw materials, we can use our natural resources wisely. The key to this result is management. Whether it is farm or ranch land management or a new venture, protecting our sustainable natural resources directly affects everyone’s economic growth and future development.