red alert!!!

An increased public awareness of environmental problems has made ecology a common but often misused word. It is confused with environmental programs and environmental science. Although the field is a distinct scientific discipline, ecology does indeed contribute to the study and understanding of environmental problems.

The challenge of conservation is to understand the complex connections among natural resources and balance resource use with protection to ensure an adequate supply for future generations. In order to accomplish this goal, a variety of conservation methods are used.

These include reducing consumption of resources; protecting them from contamination or pollution; reusing or recycling resources when possible; and fully protecting, or preserving, resources. Consumption of natural resources rises dramatically every year as the human population increases and standards of living rise. The large, developed nations, however, are responsible for the greatest consumption of natural resources because of their high standards of living.

Conservation education and the thoughtful use of resources is necessary, to reduce natural-resource consumption. To protect natural resources from pollution, individuals, industries, and governments have many obligations. These include prohibiting or limiting the use of pesticides and other toxic chemicals, limiting wastewater and airborne pollutants, preventing the production of radioactive materials, and regulating drilling and transportation of petroleum products. Failure to do so results in contaminated air, soil, rivers, plants, and animals. Some resources are so unique or valuable that they are protected from activities that would destroy or degrade them.

For example, national parks and wilderness areas are protected from logging or mining in the because such activities would reduce the economic, recreational, and aesthetic values of the resource. Forests and wetlands, areas with high soil moisture or surface water may be protected from development because they enhance air and water quality and provide habitat for a wide variety of plants and animals.

Unfortunately, these areas are often threatened with development because it is difficult to measure the economic benefits of cleaner air, cleaner water, and the many other environmental benefits of these ecosystems, the plants and animals of a natural community and their physical environment. Forests provide many social, economic, and environmental benefits.

In addition to timber and paper products, forests provide wildlife habitat and recreational opportunities, prevent soil erosion and flooding, help provide clean air and water, and contain tremendous biodiversity. Forests are also an important defense against global climate change. Through the process of photosynthesis, forests produce life-giving oxygen and consume huge amounts of carbon dioxide, the atmospheric chemical most responsible for global warming. By decreasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, forests may reduce the effects of global warming.

Due to poor economies, people resort to clearing the forest and planting crops in order to survive. While there have been effective efforts to stop deforestation directly through boycotts of multinational corporations responsible for exploitative logging, the most effective conservation policies in these countries have been efforts to relieve poverty and expand access to education and health care.

Unfortunately, human activities have greatly reduced biodiversity around the world. The greatest threat to biodiversity is loss of habitat as humans develop land for agriculture, grazing livestock, industry, and habitation.