Exploring Society I · Chapter 1 — Natural Resources and Their Use

Pick up anything near you: a pencil, a steel tumbler, a cotton shirt, even a plastic button. Ask where it came from, and then where that came from. Sooner or later every chain of answers ends in Nature: a tree, a rock, a field, an oil well under the sea.

Nature and resources. One meaning of the word Nature is everything living and non-living around us that humans did not make: rivers, air, soil, forests, rocks, animals. A part of Nature becomes a resource when people use it to live, or turn it into something they need. A tree standing in a forest is simply part of Nature. When its wood is cut and made into a table, we are treating the tree as a resource.

Three conditions. Something in Nature is not a usable resource just because it exists. It must pass three tests:

• Technologically accessible: we must have the tools to reach and use it. Petroleum lying very deep below the ocean floor is not a resource for us until we can drill that deep.
• Economically feasible: the cost of getting it out must make sense. If extracting a mineral costs more than it is worth, nobody will extract it.
• Culturally acceptable: society must agree to its use. Many communities protect sacred groves, patches of forest where trees are never cut. Those trees are not treated as timber.

A note on a word. In daily speech, exploitation sounds bad. In geography and economics it also has a neutral meaning: taking out, using and consuming a natural resource.

Obvious and hidden treasures. Some resources are easy to notice: water, air and soil. Others are hidden and took millions of years to form: coal, petroleum, metal ores, precious stones. Humans have slowly learnt to find and use them.

Nature as a nurturer. In many traditions in India and around the world, Nature is seen as sacred, a mother who feeds and protects. Daily customs such as worshipping the tulasī plant or offering water to the Sun express gratitude rather than ownership. Such attitudes affect how carefully a community uses what Nature gives.

So, a definition. Natural resources are materials and substances that occur in Nature and are valuable to humans. Whether a thing counts as a resource can change over time: new technology, new prices or new customs can turn a useless thing into a resource, or the other way round.

In science you sort living and non-living things into groups. The moment someone says 'living thing', you know what is meant. Sorting things into named groups, or categories, saves time and helps people talk clearly. We can sort natural resources in the same way.

Choosing a criterion. Before sorting, we choose a criterion, a shared feature that decides which group a thing goes into. One useful criterion is what we use the resource for. This gives three groups.

1. Resources essential for life. Air to breathe, water to drink and food to eat. We take air from the atmosphere, water from rivers, ponds and wells, and food from soil and other living things. No factory can make these in the amounts we need. We cannot manufacture the air we breathe or the soil that grows our grain.

2. Resources for materials. People shape Nature's gifts into useful and beautiful objects. A block of wood may become a chair, or be carved into a small statue. Marble becomes floors and temples, clay becomes pots and bricks, iron ore becomes steel, and gold becomes jewellery. India's varied land, from mountains to coasts, gives it a wide range of such materials, from timber and marble to coal and gold.

3. Resources for energy. Modern life runs on energy: electricity for homes, schools and hospitals, fuel for buses and trains, and power for factories. This energy comes from coal, petroleum, natural gas, flowing water, sunlight and wind.

One resource, many groups. The same resource can sit in more than one category. Water is essential for life, but flowing water also turns turbines in a small hydel plant, like the microhydel plants of Himachal Pradesh. Wood can be a material (furniture) or an energy source (firewood). Categories describe uses, not fixed labels.

Another criterion. We can also sort resources by whether Nature can replace them. This gives the groups renewable and non-renewable, which you will study next. Using two criteria together gives a fuller picture: coal, for example, is an energy resource that is non-renewable.

A cut on your knee heals in a week without your doing anything. A forest burnt by a wildfire grows green again after a few years. These are signs of a deep principle: Nature repairs and renews itself.

Two key words. Restoration means returning something to its original healthy state after damage. Regeneration goes a step further: it is Nature's power to create new life and the conditions in which life can thrive.

A cycle with no waste. Follow a tree in a forest. It grows, gives fruit and shade, and one day falls. Bacteria, fungi and insects feed on the fallen trunk and break it down. The broken-down wood becomes part of the soil and makes it richer. Seeds sprout in that soil, new trees grow, and in time they too will fall. Nothing is wasted: the end of one life feeds the next.

Helping Nature heal. When people replant a cleared area with the kinds of trees that originally grew there, the ecosystem comes back. The trees feed and shelter birds, squirrels and insects, and life returns. Planting the right native trees matters, because the local creatures depend on them.

Ecosystem functions and services. Nature does many jobs on its own. A forest filters rainwater, holds soil in place and gives animals a home. These are ecosystem functions. When humans benefit from them, for example clean water in our wells, farmland that is not washed away, or crops pollinated by bees, we call them ecosystem services. Honey from a beehive and oxygen from trees are further examples.

Counting the oxygen. A mature tree gives out roughly 275 litres of oxygen a day (the figure varies with the kind of tree). A person needs roughly 350 litres a day, more if they are very active. So one person needs the oxygen output of more than one big tree: 350 ÷ 275 ≈ 1.3 trees. A town of 10,000 people would need the daily output of about 12,700 such trees. Numbers like these show how much we depend on services we never pay for.

Gentle farming. Ploughing lightly disturbs the small living world under the ground less and keeps moisture in the soil. Practices that work with Nature's cycles keep the services flowing.

Sunlight falls on most of India almost all year. Rivers are fed every year by rain and melting glaciers. Forests grow back, and soil slowly rebuilds itself. Resources that Nature keeps replacing are called renewable resources: solar energy, wind energy, energy from flowing water, and timber from forests.

The big condition. A renewable resource stays renewable only if we do not break Nature's rhythm of restoration and regeneration. If timber is cut faster than the forest can grow new trees, the forest shrinks and finally disappears. Renewable does not mean unlimited; it means replaceable at Nature's speed.

Example 1: glaciers and rivers. Scientists have shown that several human actions, among them industry that burns fossil fuels and clearing forests for farms and other uses, together contribute to rising temperatures. In parts of the Himalaya, glaciers now melt faster than snowfall can rebuild them. The Himalaya acts as a 'water tower' for the plains. If the glaciers shrink, the rivers that millions of people depend on become less reliable. River water is renewable only as long as glaciers and forests last.

Example 2: fish. Many fishing communities traditionally stopped or reduced fishing during the spawning season, when fish lay eggs, so that fish numbers stayed healthy. Large-scale commercial fishing ignored such limits. The tuna, a large fish that keeps the ocean food chain in balance by eating smaller fish and shrimps, declined so sharply that countries signed agreements to control tuna fishing. Even so, its numbers are still falling.

Example 3: polluted rivers. Factories make the goods we use, but often release untreated waste into rivers. Much of this waste cannot be broken down and used as food by any living thing. Instead of joining Nature's cycle, it poisons it, and the river can no longer support life. Clean water, a renewable resource, is lost.

The lesson. We can use renewable resources for a very long time, but only by taking less than Nature can replace.

Coal in a mine today began as plants that lived and died hundreds of millions of years ago. Buried under layers of rock, they slowly turned to coal. Once we burn a lump of coal, Nature will not make another one on any time scale that matters to us.

Definition. Non-renewable resources form over very long periods and cannot be replaced as fast as we use them. They include:

• Fossil fuels: coal, petroleum and natural gas.
• Minerals and metals: iron, copper, gold, bauxite and others, taken from ores in the ground.

India and coal. India has large coal reserves, and much of our electricity is made by burning coal. But one estimate quoted in the textbook suggests that India's coal may last only about another 50 years. At the same time, demand for electricity keeps rising, because the population is growing and development work is speeding up. A student in Class 8 today will be in their early sixties around the time such an estimate runs out.

Why careful use matters. Until cleaner options are widely available, we still need coal, so we must use it judiciously, with good judgement and without waste. Careful use buys time for humanity to develop alternatives.

Renewable versus non-renewable.

Daily life check. You use non-renewable resources every day, often without noticing. Electricity from a coal power station lights your room; petrol or diesel runs the bus to school; plastic is made from petroleum; your steel lunch box came from iron ore. Many have renewable substitutes: solar panels on the roof, an electric bus charged from solar or wind power, cloth bags instead of plastic ones.

Steps toward renewables. Switch off lights and fans when not needed, use public transport or a cycle, choose solar water heaters, and reuse and recycle metals. Each step makes the remaining non-renewables last longer.

Iron ore is mined in a few districts of Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka and Goa; crude oil comes from places such as Assam, Gujarat and the sea off Mumbai. Your own district may have neither. Natural resources are spread unevenly across the planet and even within one country.

Why this matters. Where resources lie shapes where people settle, what they trade, how countries deal with each other, and sometimes where wars are fought. Many wars in history, and some today, have been about controlling resources.

Benefits near the resource. When an industry is set up close to a mine or a forest, local people find jobs. A township grows around it, with shops, schools and hospitals, and modern facilities reach the area.

Costs near the resource. The same development can carry heavy costs, now and later. In many parts of the world, people living in resource-rich areas have been moved from their homes to make way for mines, dams or factories. Sometimes their sacred places are threatened, which leads to conflict. Pollution and loss of forests may last long after the mine closes.

Trade and skill. Resources plus human skill can create products known across the world. In ancient India, iron ore and the knowledge of smiths produced Wootz steel, prized far beyond India's borders. Trade in such goods helped large empires grow.

Rivers do not respect borders. Nature ignores political boundaries, so sharing creates tension. The waters of the Kaveri are shared by Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Puducherry, and keeping the peace has needed long negotiations and careful management. The Mettur dam in Tamil Nadu is one of the structures on this river. Between countries, agreements are harder still. The Brahmaputra, for example, flows through more than one country before reaching the sea.

The paradox of plenty. Surprisingly, having lots of resources does not make a country rich. Some resource-rich regions grow more slowly than others. Economists call this the resource curse or the paradox of plenty. A common reason is that such places sell raw materials cheaply and fail to build industries that turn them into higher-value products. Knowledge, good governance and planning decide whether a resource becomes a lasting benefit or a short windfall. India has largely avoided this curse by building industries to meet its own needs. You will see why in the chapter 'Factors of Production'.

In many villages a tube well that once found water at 10 metres now has to go down 30 metres or more. Each year the pump works harder and the electricity bill rises. This is what overusing a renewable resource looks like.

Groundwater. Many farmers in India pump groundwater for irrigation. In most states, water is taken out faster than rain can refill the underground store. The gap adds up year after year: pumping costs rise, and finally the water may run out. Many growing cities may soon face the same problem. Remedies include traditional rainwater harvesting, reviving ponds and tanks, cutting waste, and treating and reusing water.

Caselet: Punjab. Punjab was the home of the Green Revolution, which helped India grow enough grain to feed itself. The story of what followed shows the cost:

• In the 1960s farmers switched to high-yielding varieties of wheat and paddy, which needed far more water than traditional seeds.
• Farmers pumped groundwater to meet this need, and free electricity for farm pumps encouraged over-pumping.
• Chemical fertilisers and pesticides were used heavily.
• Result: over a large part of the state, groundwater can no longer be reached until a depth of about 30 metres, and dissolved chemicals in it harm health.
• Almost 80% of Punjab's area is classed as over-exploited: water is drawn much faster than it can be restored.

Food security was won for the short term, but healing the damage will take a long time. The problem is not limited to Punjab.

Soil. Wrong use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides has degraded soil, and crops fail on worn-out land. Traditional farming treated soil as part of Mother Earth and used cow dung and other natural manures, mulching (covering soil with plant material) and multi-cropping (several crops together). Learning from these can help rebuild soil.

Cement. Homes, schools, roads and airports all need cement, yet its production is listed among the most polluting industries. Fine dust enters the lungs of people and animals, settles on leaves and lowers crop yields, and pollutes soil and water. The Central Pollution Control Board has set guidelines to reduce this. Builders are also turning to alternatives: stone and mud (Jaisalmer fort was first built of mud in the 12th century), plant-based materials and recycled plastic. The Auroville Earth Institute makes modern buildings from mud using special techniques.

A good steward looks after something that belongs to everyone, including people not yet born. Stewardship of natural resources means using renewable resources so they can restore and regenerate, and using non-renewable ones carefully. Scientists warn that careless use has caused pollution, biodiversity loss (a fall in the variety of life on Earth) and climate change, all happening faster in recent years.

Old knowledge: Vṛikṣhāyurveda. This ancient Indian science of plants and trees (from vṛikṣha, tree, and āyurveda, science of life) was set down in texts such as Surapala's Vṛikṣhāyurveda, around the 10th century CE. It advises which plants suit which soils, how to collect, store and treat seeds, how much to water at each stage and season, how to keep pests away with natural repellents and companion plants, and how to plough so the soil keeps moisture and stays alive with fungi, bacteria and earthworms. It supports crop rotation and mixed cropping.

Caselet: Sikkim goes organic. A farming family in Sikkim faced falling yields and growing debts from costly chemicals. When the state promoted organic farming, they switched to compost, natural pest sprays made from neem and garlic, and several crops through the year. At first yields fell as the soil recovered. After about five years the farm was thriving, selling cardamom, ginger and traditional vegetables at good prices. In 2016 Sikkim became a fully organic state, with all its farmland certified. Insects and birds returned, tourism grew, and farmers' incomes rose by about 20% on average.

Switching to renewable energy. For non-renewables, the aim is to make them last until better options are ready, which means moving to renewables wherever we can. One of the world's largest solar parks, in Rajasthan, can generate enough electricity for about 15% of the state's present needs, and the Bhadla Solar Park has become a symbol of India's solar plans. In 2015 India and France launched the International Solar Alliance, a group of sunshine-rich countries working together on solar power. India has helped direct large investment into solar projects in developing countries and shared its technical know-how.

Fair access. Resources are not shared fairly. In many city areas drinking water does not arrive regularly, and air pollution from industry and fuel hits hardest those who cannot protect themselves from it. Stewardship includes fairness.

Lokasangraha. The Bhagavad Gītā speaks of lokasangraha, acting for the wellbeing of all and rising above personal desire. It is a useful guide for how we treat Nature's gifts.