What are the motives for conservation?

Question

How does conservation relate to people's physical needs through ecosystem stability/biodiversity, sustainability, sceintific investigation and dicovery and education?

And how does conservation relate to people's emotional needs aesthetically, spiritually, morally, Culturally and by challenge?

I find the topic very confusing to understand, and I need a little help from someone who knows about conservation to understand the subject a bit easier. Thanks =]

Answer 1

when u conserve, u always have to use by avoiding depletion through carefu use and renewal. when u conserve the state of things the actual beauty is also conserved. nature is beautiful

Answer 2

I am a conservationist so that there will always be animals around for me to hunt.

Answer 3

As a Cross-Bearer, I am to be a good steward of God's Earth.  Therefore I'm responsible to be a conservative(green living) whenever possible.

Answer 4

Whaaaaaaaaaaaa ?

I'm confused after the first sentence.

Just know that conservation is good.

:D

Answer 5

There are three different philosophies about how we should manage our natural resources.  The first (and probably least popular) attitude is utilization, a take what you can when you can approach.  This attitude would certainly lead to mass extinctions - including humans.  The second approach is the complete opposite of utilization.  It is preservation - a "no use" or hands-off approach to our natural resources.  The most popular attitude is conservation or "wise use" of our natural resources.

Because people are living beings, we need to find the same five habitat requirements as other animals - food, water, shelter, space, and air.  Without those, we can't survive.  Only if we use those in a sustainable way, can our species (and others) continue to survive on this planet.  Everything in nature, including people, is connected.  The loss of a single species could create havoc throughout the ecosystem.  For example, without honeybees, the majority of our crops couldn't be grown.  Because we don't fully understand the role every species plays in the environment, we look at biodiversity as one measure of ecosystem health.  Plus, a large portion of our medicines come from very diverse plants.  If we lost those plants, we could lose necessary medications.  Future "miracle drugs" are still waiting to be found through science.  Only maintaining biodiversity can guarantee we don't lose those before we can even find them.  This is a good "basics" website for biodiversity:

http://www.biodiversity911.org/biodivers...

As for people's emotional needs, there are many studies that suggest nature is good for mental health.  The color green is believed to help relieve anxiety and depression.  Blue can be calming, and brown can give a feeling of stability.  Those are the main colors we see in nature.  In urban areas, the predominant color is gray, which can be unsettling and depressing.  People like to be able to see different plants and animals.  It makes our world visually interesting.

Conservation plays a big role in people's spiritual lives, but it varies according to what religion you are.  Christians believe that they should be good stewards of all God's creations, Taoists and Pagans place a huge emphasis on the link between people and nature.  

Morally, a lot of people feel like other organisms on the plant have an inherit right to exist, the same as human beings.  Many also feel that we have a moral obligation to our grandchildren and their grandchildren to not destroy something they might value.

The different cultures that we have in the world today come from the way people responded to their environment in the past.  Some cultures require certain environments.  Imagine an American Eskimo trying to live by his culture in San Diego.

Hope that helps!

Answer 6

It's the survival of the human race.

Now is the time to start thinking green.  Leonardo Dicaprio has an important message in the following website.

http://www.leonardodicaprio.org/whatsimp...

Hope you all have speakers to hear his message.



I'm trying to do my part by encouraging everyone to have at least one live plant in each room, especially if it's air conditioned.  If you want to know the best plants?  Please use NASA's Clean Air Plant Study as a guide.  It can be found at: http://www.zone10.com/tech/NASA/Fyh.htm

Answer 7

Conservation basically refers to the preservation of natural habitats so that all things, alive and not, within the system can continue with their natural processes to the best degree possible without too much human interference.  We as humans are emotionally attached to this earth as well as spiritually.  Most of us take pleasure in seeing wild creatures and connecting with them.  This world has so much beauty to offer all of us and as much as some people in the modern world want to rise above it, we can never do so simply because everything we do relates back to the natural world.  We take in nutrients that have been used by countless organisms in the past.  Yes, your body is composed of elements the maybe only a few years ago belonged to a moose or a bear.  In this light, how can we as people ever think we are seperate detached individuals from all other life forms.  Conservation allows us to maintain the integrety of the system and allow it to operate on its own terms, which if you ever sit back and observe, is remarkably beautiful.  In modern society we create works of art like paintings and sculptures.  Although a pleasure to see, a Da Vinci or Michaelangelo could never compete with the imaculate beauty that surrounds us in the natural world and we are a part of it.  We as humans are cast members in the play of life,  taking in all the good and bad it has to offer, and how you choose to look upon it will either guide you closer to the mystery or drive you from it.

Answer 8

Ensuring that an ecosystem is stable is a process.  By constantly doing counts of a certain species, and checking the genetic variation of random specimens to make sure of their ability to withstand disease through new genetic combinations, we can understand the fitness of a certain species within a geographical area.  By counting the number of species within a certain geographical area, observing the interactions between species, we begin to understand not only how a species operates, but also how the entire ecosystem operates.

Once we have all that information, we save it, put all that data somewhere to understand the impact of our actions when we attempt to extract our physical needs.  For instance, if a study in 1980 sees that there were 90 bald eagles in a given area, and then there are only 5, what factors contributed to that decline?  Might whatever is thinning out their population have an effect on human populations?  Does whatever we cultivate in this possibly polluted nearby area get distributed worldwide?  

Sustainability refers to not killing the Golden Goose.  The old fable talked about the farmer who thought he could get more money from getting all the golden eggs inside of the goose instead of waiting and nurturing the goose.  There is constantly that debate between cultivating all of a resource as we can now and make a substantial profit immediately or nurturing the environment which supports the generation of that resource, and taking only a small portion at any given time.

We can only know what sustains this resource by studying all the environmental factors of its production (including other species interactions and the factors that effect those species), and then by educating people in not taking more than what they need so that all can benefit from this sustainability.

The aesthetics.  Ahh, nature.  The big trees, the clear rivers, the caribou, the (insert your favorite big animal here)...  We are beginning to understand that very minute changes in the environment can set off a dynamic set of events.  For instance, a slight change in acidity in the soil from the local power plant emissions could cause a certain fungus to die off (who cares, right?) But what if that certain fungus helped to break down nutrients from dead organic material and reintroduce them into the soil?  Well, the soil would lose its fertility, the local produce would not be so perky, the local deer or herbivore would not have as much food, and the predators (or favorite big animal) would slowly die off.

Our culture values possession and immediate acquisition.  Some might say acquiring more than we really will ever use to buffer ourselves from some future calamity.  Spiritually, is it a lack of faith in getting our own needs provided?  Or another angle - is nature a place to get away from the bustle of this acquisition, a quiet spot to reflect?  What is the value of peace?