Land, Natural Resources and Conflict: From Curse to Opportunity An UN-EU Partnership in action

There is increasing deficiency of energy, metals, coal, non-fuel and non-metallic materials. With regard to fuels, there is great concern over the increasing use to meet human desires. When done unsustainably, deforestation destroys all of the land and soil nutrients, which new trees depend on to grow. We have also contributed to land pollution when we harvest natural resources that are toxic to soil. This commonly occurs when mining various metals and minerals such as nuclear materials. We continue to perpetuate the momentum of climate change through the depletion of our natural resources.

Women have faced historical exclusion from decision-making processes related to land and resources . Due to enduring patriarchal gender norms across the world, they hold less control than men over the lands and resources they traditionally use and rely on for their livelihoods and wellbeing. As such, it is important that states ensure that women’s rights over natural resources are realized and protected through appropriate mechanisms.

The Principles and Practice of Sustainable Economic Development

Overpopulation typically heightens the demands of natural resources such as food, timber, fish, clothes, leather, natural gas, electrical equipment and so on. Non-renewable resources are the ones that cannot simply be substituted or recovered once they have been utilized or destroyed. Minerals are categorized as non-renewable because, even though they take shape naturally through the rock cycle, their formation periods take thousands of years. Some animals mostly the endangered species are similarly regarded as non-renewable because they are at the verge of extinction. Agriculture uses soils and water as a resource for food production, and at the same time impacts on these resources.

• This is being felt now more than ever, as the climate crisis continues to gain momentum, our oceans become more polluted, and our natural resources are exhausted.
• Overconsumption refers to a state in which we extract too many resources for consumption purposes which results in an unsustainable environmental system.
• The natural resource depletion starts from the human aspiration for more and luxuries of life.
• By extracting resources, we usually destroy the environment of a variety of animals and plants.
• The solution is to change human behaviors and modernize technology to be environmentally sound.
• He enjoys writing about science and technology as he finds the intricacies which come with each topic fascinating.

We have seen healthy rivers and streams turn into wastelands that are unfit for biodiversity and human utilization. This has resulted in the extinction of countless species around the globe. Let’s explore the effects that depleting our natural resources has on climate change.

Causes of Natural Resources Depletion

Poor irrigation practices create alkalisation of the soil and poor soil management and heavy machinery further destroy the soil making it no longer a suitable resource for plant growth. Intense use of pesticides harm the soil and the nutrients in it on which plants are dependent. Groundwater is considered to be a non-renewable resource because less than six percent of the water around the world is replenished and renewed on a human timescale of 50 years. People are already using non-renewable water that is thousands of years old, in areas like Egypt they are using water that may have been renewed a million years ago which is not renewable on human timescales. It is estimated that since the 1960s groundwater extraction has more than doubled, which has increased groundwater depletion. Due to this increase in depletion, in some of the most depleted areas use of groundwater for irrigation has become impossible or cost prohibitive.

The increase in pollution, mainly from the burning of fossil fuels and other chemicals has heavily impacted the environment. The soil, air and bodies of water are increasingly contaminated with chemicals and pollutants from our emissions and our waste. Depletion accounting is complex to implement as nature is not as quantifiable as cars, houses, or bread. For depletion accounting to work, appropriate units of natural resources must be established so that natural resources can be viable in the market economy.

Natural Resource Depletion Causes and Effects with Solutions

Before any meaningful change of attitudes can take place, society has to understand that oil is truly finite – and is going to become very scarce sooner rather than later. Secondly Natural Resources and Depletion the true cost of the conspicuous and wanton consumption of this fossil fuel energy must be identified and acknowledged and appropriate depletion strategies implemented.

We can see bizarre weather patterns happening on our planet, which has resulted in unpredictable conditions for growing food. Farmers have experienced extremely warm winters and cool summers in places that normally have stability and consistency for their climate.

Stop deforestation

By Burnett et al. applies the principles of coordinated resource management to the specific example of managing an invasive tree species that interferes with groundwater recharge. At the optimum, the marginal cost of increasing recharge via watershed conservation should be equal to the shadow value of groundwater in consumption.

By extracting resources, we usually destroy the environment of a variety of animals and plants. If this trend for increasing consumption levels continues, resource depletion at large scale will be the dramatic consequence. Moreover, more and more people strive for a materialistic lifestyle and thus the overall resource demand increases dramatically. Mining is an effective way to do that, however, excessive mining behavior leads to excessive resource extraction and can also harm the local environmental system. For example, countries that had been quite poor for a long period of time now strive to increase their living standards, leading to an increased consumption per capita. A large population demands a massive quantity of food, which promotes more agricultural practices. Similarly, the end of coal and natural gas is nearing and would have equally devastating impacts.

This long-awaited technology has more momentum now than ever with hybrid and fully electric cars becoming highly advanced, practical, and more affordable. As sustainable living becomes more popular, we are beginning to rethink and reinvest our energy demands. The depletion of non-renewable energy resources such as oil and natural gas is an inevitability. The depletion of particularly our non-renewable energy resources is a troubling notion for nations that are highly dependant on them for economic stability. Despite the fact that much of the world is attempting to start a green revolution, we are still heavily dependant on oil and natural gas for societal functionality. We can see this happening in places like Los Angeles, Bakersfield, and various cities in China and Asia.

Currently 40% of our energy used is sourced from oil, and this resource is estimated to be depleted by 2052. This will be hugely troubling for human production and consumption as oil is essential in manufacturing, planting, mining, and transportation. In the future, international cooperation in sharing scarce resources will become increasingly important. Where scarcity is concentrated on the non-renewable resources that play the most important role in meeting needs, the most essential element for the realisation of human rights is an adequate and equitable allocation of scarcity. Inequality, taken to its extreme, causes intense discontent, which can lead to social unrest and even armed conflict. Many experts believe that ensuring equitable development is the only sure way to a peaceful distribution of scarcity.

Technological development

UN Environment Acting Executive Director Joyce Msuya has called for speeding up the energy transition from fossil fuels—coal, oil and gas—to renewable sources of energy like wind and solar. Another enormous consequence of natural resource depletion is the scarcity of drinking water. As the water pollution rate increases, there will not be a pure source of drinking water. Climate change is the change in the local weather over decades, which hampers our daily life.

Wetlands in Southern America also prove a fruitful resource for poachers, as animals with valuable hides such a jaguars, maned wolves, caimans, and snakes are drawn to wetlands. The effect of the removal of large predators is still unknown in South African wetlands. Decision making must be inclusive and account https://accounting-services.net/ for the needs, rights, and knowledges of historically marginalized communities and groups. Governance structures must recognize and support pre-existing sustainable practices at local and regional levels, as well as nourish the emergence of more sustainable patterns of resource use and management.

Adjusted savings: natural resources depletion (% of GNI)

Resource depletion can have significant adverse effects on our air quality. Thus, many precious resources are lost since they will be burnt instead of reusing them. The use of heavy machines can also destroy the soil structure, which in turn may also lead to lower crop yields and may even make the soil unfitting for future farming purposes. In the short run, due to excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides, farmers will be able to supply great amounts of food. Many countries are already there that are not reachable to portable water, and if this continues soon, all developing and developed countries will also face water scarcity. This not only contaminates the quality of foods we are eating but also becomes the reason for soil infertility.

Natural resources are profitable to the mankind in various ways and thus humans take them for granted. Indiscriminate use of the natural resources has led most of these to become scarce.