natural resources, conservation of: see conservation of natural resources.

conservation of natural resources, the wise use of the earth's resources by humanity. The term conservation came into use in the late 19th cent. and referred to the management, mainly for economic reasons, of such valuable natural resources as timber, fish, game, topsoil, pastureland, and minerals, and also to the preservation of forests (see forestry), wildlife (see wildlife refuge), parkland, wilderness, and watershed areas. In recent years the science of ecology has clarified the workings of the biosphere; i.e., the complex interrelationships among humans, other animals, plants, and the physical environment. At the same time burgeoning population and industry and the ensuing pollution have demonstrated how easily delicately balanced ecological relationships can be disrupted (see air pollution; water pollution; solid waste).

Conservation of natural resources is now usually embraced in the broader conception of conserving the earth itself by protecting its capacity for self-renewal. Particularly complex are the problems of nonrenewable resources such as oil and coal (see energy, sources of) and other minerals in great demand. Current thinking also favors the protection of entire ecological regions by the creation of "biosphere reserves." Examples of such conservation areas include the Great Barrier Reef off Australia and Adirondack State Park in the United States. The importance of reconciling human use and conservation beyond the boundaries of parks has become another important issue.

Conservation in the United States

Conservation became part of U.S. government policy with the creation (1871) of a U.S. commissioner of fish and fisheries. The Forestry Bureau of the Dept. of Agriculture created the first national forest reserve in 1891. The Irrigation Division in the U.S. Geological Survey developed into the Bureau of Reclamation. The Geological Survey has cataloged and classified the resources of the public domain. In 1906 an act protected the Alaskan fisheries. Conservation as part of a total approach to the use of natural resources was first introduced by President Theodore Roosevelt and his chief forester, Gifford Pinchot. In 1907 President Roosevelt appointed the Inland Waterways Commission, which emphasized the connection between forests, water supply, and stream flow. In 1909 he appointed the National Conservation Commission, which published the first inventory of the country's natural resources. Roosevelt in 1907 began withdrawing large areas of western public land from sale and settlement so that their resources might be investigated, and setting apart forest reserves, following the example of President Cleveland. Approximately one fourth of all timberland is held by the government. The National Park Service was created in 1916 to preserve landscapes of important aesthetic value. In the 1930s the erosion of much arable land in the Midwest underscored the need for land reclamation and for conservation in general. The National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 provided for conservation. The Civilian Conservation Corps, founded in 1933 to relieve unemployment, furnished the personnel for many conservation projects. The Tennessee Valley Authority, set up in 1933, was an outstanding attempt to apply principles of conservation, soil reclamation, and electrification to an entire area, although some critics claim that the extensive river damming and similar New Deal legislation did not, on the whole, have a positive effect on the environment. By 1960 the Soil Conservation Service, established in 1935, covered 95% of all farms and ranches in the United States. By the same year, under the Conservation Reserve Program, some 28 million acres of cropland had been returned to grass and forest cover. Throughout the 1950s attention was focused on the problem of conservation of water resources, particularly in the Southwest. In the 1960s pollution problems came to the fore in all industrialized countries. In the United States numerous laws were passed to protect the environment and its resources (see environmentalism).

Conservation Worldwide

The commitment of nations to conservation policies varies. Some nations, such as Iraq, Cambodia, and the republics of the former Soviet Union, have no protected areas, while 38% of Ecuador's land is protected and 44% of Luxembourg's is. (In the United States 7% of the land is protected.) Plants and animals have been protected through curtailment of whaling and the taking of porpoises in tuna seines and restrictions on logging. Endangered species have been protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES, 1979). In addition to CITES, United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the "Earth Summit," 1992) produced an agreement to protect the world's biological diversity. The World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, and other organizations also have been active in promoting conservation internationally.

International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) or World Conservation Union, international organization founded in 1948 to encourage the preservation of wildlife, natural environments, and living resources. Its members include private individuals, nongovernmental organizations and governments. The IUCN promotes research in the preservation of threatened species, ecology, sustainable development, and environmental law, education, and training.

Principle of physics according to which the energy of interacting bodies or particles in a closed system remains constant, though it may take different forms (e.g., kinetic energy, potential energy, thermal energy, energy in an electric current, or energy stored in an electric field, in a magnetic field, or in chemical bonds [see bonding]). With the advent of relativity physics in 1905, mass was recognized as equivalent to energy. When accounting for a system of high-speed particles whose mass increases as a consequence of their speed, the laws of conservation of energy and conservation of mass become one conservation law. Seealso Hermann von Helmholtz.

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or law of conservation

In physics, the principle that certain quantities within an isolated system do not change over time. When a substance in an isolated system changes phase, the total amount of mass does not change. When energy is changed from one form to another in an isolated system, there is no change in the total amount of energy. When a transfer of momentum occurs in an isolated system, the total amount of momentum is conserved. The same is true for electric charge in a system: charge lost by one particle is gained by another. Conservation laws make it possible to predict the macroscopic behaviour of a system without having to consider the microscopic details of a physical process or chemical reaction.

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Planned management of a natural resource or of a particular ecosystem to prevent exploitation, pollution, destruction, or neglect and to ensure the future usability of the resource. Living resources are renewable, minerals and fossil fuels are nonrenewable. In the West, conservation efforts date to 17th-century efforts to protect European forests in the face of increasing demands for fuel and building materials. National parks, first established in the 19th century, were dedicated to the preservation of uncultivated land not only to provide a safe haven to wildlife but to protect watershed areas and help ensure a clean water supply. National legislation and international treaties and regulations aim to strike a balance between the need for development and the need to conserve the environment for the future.

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Maintenance and preservation of works of art, their protection from future damage, deterioration, or neglect, and the repair or renovation of works that have deteriorated or been damaged. Research in art history has relied heavily on 20th- and 21st-century technical and scientific advances in art restoration. Modern conservation practice adheres to the principle of reversibility, which dictates that treatments should not cause permanent alteration to the object.

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(1933–42) U.S. unemployment program. One of the earliest New Deal programs, it was established to relieve unemployment during the Great Depression by providing national conservation work primarily for young unmarried men. Recruits lived in semimilitary work camps and received $30 a month as well as food and medical care. Projects included planting trees, building flood barriers, fighting forest fires, and maintaining forest roads and trails. It employed a total of 3 million men during its existence.

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Apportionment of productive assets among different uses. The issue of resource allocation arises as societies seek to balance limited resources (capital, labour, land) against the various and often unlimited wants of their members. Mechanisms of resource allocation include the price system in free-market economies and government planning, either in state-run economies or in the public sectors of mixed economies. The aim is always to allocate resources in such a way as to obtain the maximum possible output from a given combination of resources.

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