All those natural and human factors which man uses for the fulfilment of his needs, are called resources. It is clear that any natural thing becomes a resource when man uses it for his own benefit. That is why, it is said that resources are not present; they are created. According to Jimmerman, “The meaning of resources is to achieve the aim. This aim fulfills the needs and social aims of man”.
Following conditions are necessary for a thing to remain in the category of resources:
1. The use of a thing is possible for human needs.
2. Such things that can be transformed into valuable and useful.
3. Such things having capacity to fulfil certain needs.
4. The human resources exploiting these resources should be prosperous.
5. Necessary capital should be there for sustainable growth in the form of resources. Because man creates resources, that is why, he is called the Father of Resources.
Need of Resources Conservation:
At present, the need of resource conservation is given in the points below:
1. Conservation of resources is necessary for sustained development of man and for long time use.
2. The speed with which destructive consumption of resources is being done, the crises of their complete exhaustion is imminent. For our coming generations, maintaining the resources availability and their proper conservation is a must.
3. Due to rapid population growth, increasing urbanisation, industrialisation and deforestation on large scale, resources are getting exhausted quickly, and on the other hand, it has caused ecological imbalance and environmental pollution. The resources conservation is necessary to solve these problems, maintaining sustained development and environment quality.
Problem of Resource Conservation: The fast economic development by man has increased the scale of exploitation in resources. Renewable resources can be re – established to a certain limit, while on the other hand, due to low speed of renewable in non – renewable resources, crises of their exhaustion has arisen. In lack of resources, coming human generations will be deprived of expected development.
Four factors are jointly responsible for causing problems of the conservation of resources:
1. Increasing human needs due to population explosion.
2. Rapid growth in industrialisation, urbanisation and transportation due to scientific inventions.
3. From widespread expansion of western culture, tendency of consumerism, maximum use of resources.
4. Tendency of maximum development.
Types of Resources:
The classification of resources can be done on following four bases:
1. On production basis there are two classes of resources:
- Biotic resources
- Abiotic resources
2. On aim basis, there are two classes of resources:
- Energy resources – conventional and non – conventional are its two sub – classes.
- Non – energy resources.
3. On the basis of continuous use there are following two classes of resources:
- Non – renewable or ending resources.
- Renewable or unending resources.
4. On ownership basis, it is of three classes:
- Individual resources
- National resources
- International resources
