Sustainability Preserving Ecosystems & Cultures
Sustainability Outcomes
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Define sustainability in reference to humans and the environment?
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Provide examples of three principles of sustainability that are derived from nature.
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List various types of resources and the role of a resource manager.
Sustainability generally refers to a species\’ ability to survive and adapt over time.
For our species, sustainability has two components: preserving Earth\’s natural systems that we are dependent on and preserving our diverse cultures.
Focus is on how to reduce environmental degradation and support cultures that may not survive due to limited resources.
One way to research sustainability is to study species and ecosystems that have survived over long periods of time.
The three general principles that have emerged from research of sustained species and systems are:
- utilizing solar energy, a perpetual resource.
- recycling nutrients over and over.
- varied organisms and environmental characteristics enabling different ways to utilize energy and nutrients.
From the class so far, what do the arrows represent in the biomass pyramid to the left?
Managing resources and the environments they are found within is a complex task.
Non-renewable resources can have significant environmental costs but are currently critical in food production and powering economies.
Renewable resources can become contaminated to the point where they are unusable, or require great expense to utilize.
Perpetual resources have potential to reduce some of the damage associated with non-renewable resources, but can be more suited for some uses and locations than others.
Intact ecosystems, communities of organisms and their environment, can also have significant value.
Resource managers attempt to make decisions on resource allocation for current and future use.
In addition to understanding the science underlying organisms and environments, resource managers need to be fluent in other disciplines as well.
Check your knowledge. Can you:
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define sustainability in reference to humans and the environment?
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provide examples of three principles of sustainability that are derived from nature?
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list various types of resources and the role of a resource manager?