The Major Ways of Sustainable Management of Natural Resources, Agriculture Optional, UPSC 2021 Mains

As Mahatma Gandhi quoted, “ The Earth has enough resources for our need, but not for our greed”.

Natural Recourses are available for free & plenty but isn’t enough to meet the rising greed of consumers. The alarming rate at which resources are depleting shows clear cut red flag on our future conditions with scarcity. We must preserve our available Natural Resources because our future generation needs it. To check this various approaches of sustainable management of using resources judiciously can be practiced.

Here’s the list of sustainable ways of managing Natural Resources.

1. Promoting Reliance on Public Transportation - The rapid growth in private vehicle ownership is a major contributor to Air & Noise Pollution. Moreover, it plays a serious role in exhaustion of  Petroleum and Natural gas. Also the cost of Petroleum products is rising resulting in huge expenses. Hence, reliance on public transports can help manage Natural resources and is also cost effective.
2. Practising 4 R’s - One can promote waste management and reduce litter production by adopting 4 R’s. 4 R’s stand for Reduce, Reuse, Recycle & Recover. Being vigilant about your purchases can help to reduce unwanted products. Reusing and Recycling can improve the longevity of purchased goods and Recovering them from producing waste. Which in future accumulates as pollution and turns havoc for humans and animals.
3. Rain Water Harvesting - RWH is a judicious method of checking excess runoff of water through rain and preserving them for future. Rain water is an active source of Fresh water on the Earth and a huge amount is wasted through leaching and evaporation. Hence constructing a catchment structure can help preserving and checking wastage of rainwater for future use.
4. Turning off Electric Appliances when not in use - Our appliances consume a lot of energy which can easily be preserved by turning them off when not in use.
5. Conducting Campaigns - Conducting campaigns and educating others about the necessity of judicial use of resources is also a very good method of creating vigilant minds for promoting sustainable management of Natural Resources.

Conclusion - The Earth has enough resources which is  available to us for free and plenty. But is facing depletion because of our actions. Management of these resources is crucial to preserve them for future generations.