- What is sustainable development?
- Key priority areas
- Natural resource protection
- What are natural resources?
What are Natural Resources?
Natural resources can be thought of in five overlapping ways. Each of these reflect values that we associate with them:
Raw materials such as minerals and biomass - minerals, such as fossil fuels, metal ores, gypsum and clay, are non-renewable because they cannot be replenished within a human timescale (for links to information on these see the Sustainable Consumption and Production section). In contrast, biomass is in principle renewable within the human timeframe, and includes quickly renewable resources, like agricultural crops and slowly renewable resources like timber. However, both of these can be pushed beyond their limits of recovery if over-exploited.
Environmental media such as air, water and soil - these resources sustain life and support biological resources on which we depend.
Flow resources such as wind, geothermal, tidal and solar energy - these resources cannot be depleted, but require other resources to exploit them. For example, energy, materials and space are needed to build wind turbines or solar cells.
Space is required to produce or sustain all the above - space provides land for our cities and towns, infrastructure, industry and agriculture. It is also required by wildlife, rivers and natural processes for them to function healthily.
Biological resources include species and genetic information - plants, animals and other organisms maintain the life-sustaining systems of the earth. Their variability (biodiversity) is also a resource and includes the diversity within species, between species and of ecosystems.
Updated: 07 March 2005