05 Natural Resources and Biodiversity

Natural resources and sustainability

Natural resources are parts of the natural world that support life and human well-being. They include land and soil, water, living organisms, and materials such as timber, minerals, and fossil fuels.

Sustainable management meets present needs while maintaining ecosystems and resource availability for the future. It also considers how the benefits and costs of resource use are distributed.

Land and soil

Land includes ecosystems, soils, and the processes that support them, not just space for buildings or farms. Healthy soil stores water and nutrients, supports plant growth, and helps regulate carbon and water cycles.

Land degradation can result from erosion, salinization, compaction, or loss of organic matter. It can reduce productivity and damage habitats. Since farming, settlements, forestry, mining, and conservation compete for land, decisions should be planned across landscapes rather than one parcel at a time.

Conservation approaches include maintaining vegetation cover, reducing erosion, restoring degraded areas, and using land suited to its ecological conditions. Agroforestry can combine production with habitat protection. Integrated land, soil, and water management should use locally appropriate practices rather than assume that one solution suits every place.

Water and watersheds

Water is renewed through the water cycle, but usable freshwater is limited by where and when it is available, its quality, and the rate at which people withdraw or pollute it. Rivers, lakes, wetlands, glaciers, and aquifers are connected, so changing water use in one part of a watershed can affect communities and ecosystems elsewhere.

Excessive withdrawals can deplete groundwater or reduce flows needed by wetlands and rivers. Pollution can make water unsafe even when water remains physically present. Sustainable water management considers the needs of households, farms, industry, and ecosystems together.

Integrated water resources management coordinates decisions across sectors and communities, typically at the scale of river basins or aquifers. Practical measures include protecting watersheds and wetlands, preventing pollution, improving irrigation efficiency where it reduces actual water consumption, and monitoring groundwater withdrawals. Efficiency alone is not enough if saved water is used to expand consumption beyond sustainable limits.

Biodiversity and conservation

Biodiversity is the variety of life at genetic, species, and ecosystem levels. It supports ecosystem functions and benefits people through food, clean water, pollination, fertile soils, climate regulation, cultural values, and other contributions.

Pressures on biodiversity include habitat loss and fragmentation, overexploitation, pollution, invasive species, and climate change. These pressures can interact: a fragmented forest, for example, may be less able to sustain species as temperatures and rainfall patterns change.

Conservation protects species and their habitats, maintains connections between ecosystems, restores damaged areas, and manages harvesting so populations can recover. Protected areas are important, but conservation also depends on how land and water are managed outside their boundaries.

The Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework includes a 2030 target to conserve and effectively manage at least 30 percent of terrestrial, inland-water, coastal, and marine areas, with attention to ecological representation, connectivity, and equitable governance. This is a policy target, not a statement that it has already been achieved.

Material resources and their use

Material resources include biomass, such as crops and wood; fossil fuels; metals; and non-metallic minerals such as sand and limestone. Some materials can regrow if harvesting stays within ecological limits. Others form so slowly that they are effectively nonrenewable on human timescales. Renewable resources can also be depleted: a forest may be cut faster than it regrows, or a fish population harvested faster than it reproduces.

Sustainable material management considers a resource’s full life cycle: extraction, processing, use, and disposal. Strategies include avoiding unnecessary material use, designing durable and repairable products, reusing goods, recovering materials through recycling, and restoring extraction sites. Recycling can reduce demand for virgin materials, but it cannot replace careful design, lower waste, and responsible sourcing.

Growing extraction and resource use are linked to pressures on climate, biodiversity, and pollution. More circular approaches are part of the response.

Managing connected resources

Resources are connected, so decisions can create resource trade-offs: a choice that benefits one goal may harm another. Irrigation can increase crop production while reducing river flows; a new mine can provide materials while disturbing habitats and affecting local water quality.

Sustainable planning identifies these effects early, considers cumulative effects, uses reliable monitoring, and involves affected communities, including Indigenous peoples and local communities. Fair access and respect for rights are central to durable conservation, not optional additions.

Land, water, biodiversity, and materials sustain ecosystems and human societies. Their management is sustainable when it protects ecological processes, avoids depletion and pollution, restores degraded systems, and distributes benefits and burdens fairly. Effective stewardship combines conservation, responsible use, long-term planning, and inclusive governance.