Natural resources are resources that exist without any actions of humankind. This includes all valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest and cultural value. On Earth, it includes sunlight, atmosphere, water, land along with all vegetation, and animal life. Natural resources can be part of our natural heritage or protected in nature reserves.
This is an index of conservation topics. It is an alphabetical index of articles relating to conservation biology and conservation of the natural environment.
Sustainable agriculture is farming in sustainable ways meeting society's present food and textile needs, without compromising the ability for current or future generations to meet their needs. It can be based on an understanding of ecosystem services. There are many methods to increase the sustainability of agriculture. When developing agriculture within sustainable food systems, it is important to develop flexible business process and farming practices.
Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), formerly known as the Soil Conservation Service (SCS), is an agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) that provides technical assistance to farmers and other private landowners and managers.
Adaptive management (AM), also known as adaptive resource management (ARM) or adaptive environmental assessment and management (AEAM), is a structured, iterative process of robust decision making in the face of uncertainty, with an aim to reducing uncertainty over time via system monitoring. In this way, decision making simultaneously meets one or more resource management objectives and, either passively or actively, accrues information needed to improve future management. Adaptive management is a tool which should be used not only to change a system, but also to learn about the system. Because adaptive management is based on a learning process, it improves long-run management outcomes. The challenge in using the adaptive management approach lies in finding the correct balance between gaining knowledge to improve management in the future and achieving the best short-term outcome based on current knowledge. This approach has more recently been employed in implementing international development programs.
The Ecological Society of America (ESA) is a professional organization of ecological scientists. Based in the United States and founded in 1915, ESA publications include peer-reviewed journals, newsletters, fact sheets, and teaching resources. It holds an annual meeting at different locations in the USA and Canada. In addition to its publications and annual meeting, ESA is engaged in public policy, science, education and diversity issues.
The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA), is the largest soil-specific society in the United States. It was formed in 1936 from the merger of the Soils Section of the American Society of Agronomy and the American Soil Survey Association. The Soils Section of ASA became the official Americas section of the International Union of Soil Sciences in 1934, a notable role which SSSA continues to fulfill.
The American Society of Agronomy (ASA) is a scientific and professional society of agronomists and scientists of related disciplines, principally in the United States but with many non-U.S. members as well.
Hugh Hammond Bennett was a pioneer in the field of soil conservation in the United States of America. He was the head of the Soil Conservation Service, a federal agency now referred to as the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
Forest management is a branch of forestry concerned with overall administrative, legal, economic, and social aspects, as well as scientific and technical aspects, such as silviculture, protection, and forest regulation. This includes management for timber, aesthetics, recreation, urban values, water, wildlife, inland and nearshore fisheries, wood products, plant genetic resources, and other forest resource values. Management objectives can be for conservation, utilisation, or a mixture of the two. Techniques include timber extraction, planting and replanting of different species, building and maintenance of roads and pathways through forests, and preventing fire.
Natural resource management (NRM) is the management of natural resources such as land, water, soil, plants and animals, with a particular focus on how management affects the quality of life for both present and future generations (stewardship).
The Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP) was established in 2002 to quantify the environmental impact of the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) conservation program. The project focuses on how watersheds are affected. CEAP monitored 14 benchmark watershed sites. The CEAP's vision is to enhance "natural resources and healthier ecosystems through improved conservation effectiveness and better management of agricultural landscapes. The goal is "to improve efficacy of conservations practices and programs by quantifying conservation effects and providing the science and education base needed to enrich conservation planning, implementation, management decisions, and policy."
The Materials Research Society (MRS) is a non-profit, professional organization for materials researchers, scientists and engineers. Established in 1973, MRS is a member-driven organization of approximately 14,000 materials researchers from academia, industry and government.
Sustainability is the ability to exist constantly. In the 21st century, it refers generally to the capacity for Earth's biosphere and human civilization to co-exist. It is also defined as the process of people maintaining change in a homeostasis-balanced environment, in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technological development, and institutional change are all in harmony and enhance both current and future potential to meet human needs and aspirations. For many in the field, sustainability is defined through the following interconnected domains or pillars: environmental, economic and social, which according to Fritjof Capra, is based on the principles of systems thinking. Sub-domains of sustainable development have been considered also: cultural, technological and political. According to Our Common Future, sustainable development is defined as development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Sustainable development may be the organizing principle of sustainability, yet others may view the two terms as paradoxical.
The National Society of Consulting Soil Scientists (NSCSS), was integrated into the Soil Science Society of America as of August, 2011. NSCSS was a scientific and professional society of soil scientists, principally in the U.S. but with non-U.S. members as well. Members engaged primarily in environmental consulting, but consulting was not a requirement of membership, and the member body included soil science educators as well as government soil scientists. Society consulting soil scientists provided professional services in the form of agricultural and environmental consulting with respect to using soil as a natural resource, especially as it relates to nutrient management, waste management, septic systems, wetlands, erosion, slope stability, land use planning, and land degradation.
The Genetics Society of America (GSA) is a scholarly membership society of more than 5,500 genetics researchers and educators, established in 1931. The Society was formed from the reorganization of the Joint Genetics Sections of the American Society of Zoologists and the Botanical Society of America.
At the global scale sustainability and environmental management involves managing the oceans, freshwater systems, land and atmosphere, according to sustainability principles.
The Society for Marine Mammalogy was founded in 1981 and is the largest international association of marine mammal scientists in the world.
A sustainability organization is (1) an organized group of people that aims to advance sustainability and/or (2) those actions of organizing something sustainably. Unlike many business organizations, sustainability organizations are not limited to implementing sustainability strategies which provide them with economic and cultural benefits attained through environmental responsibility. For sustainability organizations, sustainability can also be an end in itself without further justifications.
Soil governance refers to the policies, strategies, and the processes of decision-making employed by nation states and local governments regarding the use of soil. Globally, governance of the soil has been limited to an agricultural perspective due to increased food insecurity from the most populated regions on earth. The Global Soil Partnership, GSP, was initiated by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and its members with the hope to improve governance of the limited soil resources of the planet in order to guarantee healthy and productive soils for a food-secure world, as well as support other essential ecosystem services.
