Secondary School Level

Conservation is 'the ant of conserving f flora fauna, environment) i.e. keeping the entire’, “nature” may refer to the general realm of various types of living plants and animals and in some cases to the processes associated with inanimate objects. It is often taken to mean the "natural environment" or wilderness - wild animals, rocks, forest, beaches, and in general those things that have not been substantially altered by human intervention or which persist despite human intervention.

Conserving nature is like money in the bank. Therefore, nature conservation must adopt a conserving and restorative approach guided by human requirements and values. The only saviour of nature is human being who lives amidst nature. Man's higher aspirations and greed have been the main reasons behind destruction of the environment. The premise which is required to be held now is that mankind should control and manage the natural world. The Technological culture, with its intrusions on the natural world, has to be curtailed to preserve the ecology of the planet and our role in it.

Historically, a set of threats generated from the burgeoning human population, mass agriculture, deforestation, overgrazing, slash-and-burn, urban development, pesticide use, industrialization etc. have affected the planet's biodiversity. Worldwide, the effects of global warming and pollution add a potentially catastrophic threat to it. Biodiversity provides many ecosystem services such as its essential part in regulating the chemistry of our atmosphere, pollinating the crops, mimicked by man-made construction. Nature conservation is thus an important component of action for a sustainable society.

Industrialized society is geared entirely towards output. What are not factored into the equation are the natural services needed to support this output. Why? Because nature's services are considered free. People don't worry about stopping the outrageous use, because the 'savings' associated with conserving nature are spread throughout the society, whereas the profits earned are immediate and benefit a narrow group of individuals. As a result, man's greed for more and more has taken its toll on the earth upsetting the ecological balance terribly.

The consumer conservation ethic should be the four R's -'Rethink Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle'. This social ethic primarily relates to sustained and efficient use of renewable resources, the moderation of destructive use of finite resources, prevention of harm to the common resources such as air and water quality, the natural function of living earth and cultural values in a built environment.

The applied Science and Technology which is developing now alongside new social attitudes, realizes the values of natural resources. The conservation management seeks to foster attitudes in community and industry to the use of biological resources such as agricultures, fisheries, forestry, water, wildlife, genetic resources, changing from the earlier ‘maximum yield’ approach to sustainable yield. The secondary focus is on material conservation and energy conservation which are seen as important to protect the natural world.

The early religions like Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism granted a sacred value to animals, forests, lakes and mountains. In the West, origins of concern can be traced to Plato. However, the term conservation came into use in late 19^th century. By the early 1970s national and international agencies, notably the United Nations, acted to conserve sites of outstanding cultural and natural importance.

Overall, the objectives of nature conservation can not be achieved through action solely by central and state government. Local bodies and the people have to be a part of this campaign and assume necessary responsibility. It is now widely recognized that conservation objective has to go hand-in-hand with development; the future of conservation is bleak if rural communities don't support conservation in their areas because poverty destroys the biodiversity as well as human lives.

Our planet has fostered and supported life for millions of years as a result of which we 'live’ on it today. It would be ironical if, due to our callousness, we force this beautiful planet to die out. It should be every one's mantra today to ‘Support conservation of nature Preserve Life’.