The ways in which human beings can conserve the environment.

Since the dawn of time, the earth has provided protection and nourishment to its

inhabitants; the ozone layer providing protection from the sun's harmful rays, the vast

forests providing oxygen and shelter, the rivers and oceans providing life sustaining

water. Until the industrial age, man's relationship with his environment had been a

beneficial one, in which only what was needed, was taken. However, with the advent of

technology and machines, mankind has slowly sunk deeper into the recesses of

destruction, rather than necessity. Blessed with the gift of intelligence mankind must

make an effort to curb the slow, but sure depletion and destruction of the earth's

resources.

Nature has been kind to its inhabitants: providing us with plentiful resources. However

man has in recent times, drained these resources, not out of necessity but out of greed.

Healthy forests are critical to ensuring clean water supplies, pure air, abundant fish stocks

and wildlife - the diversity of species on which all life depends.

English: NASA projection from 1974 to 2060 of the ...

Forest lake in summer

Ozone-depleting gas trends.

Forests mitigate global

warming by absorbing and storing carbon. Intact forests regulate regional and global

hydrologic cycles insuring clean and adequate supplies of water. In addition, intact

forests hold soils in place, preserving fertility, and preventing floods, landslides and the

destructive siltation of fish spawning streams. Mankind has placed more importance on

paper and lumber than he has on the environment. Possible solutions include using

alternative sources for the creation of paper, and/or the recycling of existing paper.

However to the problem of deforestation there is only one solution: the severe regulation

of logging in industrial countries. Although the outlook appears grim, mankind can stop,

or at least slow down, what he started. Nature works in mysterious ways, and will

someday replenish her precious forests.

Perhaps earth's greatest gift to its inhabitants is protection from the sun's harmful...