Earth’s natural resources include air, minerals, plants, soil, water and wildlife. Conservation is the care and protection of these resources so they can persist for future generations. It involves maintaining diversity of species, genes and ecosystems, as well as functions of the environment, such as nutrient cycling.

Conservation is similar to preservation. However, while both relate to the protection of nature, they strive to accomplish this task in different ways. Conservation seeks the sustainable use of nature by humans, for activities such as hunting, logging or mining, while preservation focuses on protecting nature from human use. This difference is illustrated by how the United States manages its public lands. The goal of national parks, for instance, is preservation with an emphasis on causing minimal change to the landscape or environment. National forests, on the other hand, are meant to be conserved, meaning they can be used for cattle grazing, lumber, hunting and recreation, as long as it does not unduly harm the land, plants or animals.

Why Do We Need Conservation?

Conservation is necessary because humans have overexploited much of Earth’s land and natural resources, which has resulted in pollution, habitat destruction and climate change. When humans burn fossil fuels, like oil and natural gas, greenhouse gases are released. This pollution traps heat from the sun, causing Earth’s temperature to rise and resulting in severe weather. Industries, like forestry, agriculture, mining and more, contribute to climate change. All of these factors have led to biodiversity loss.

Invasive species—plants or animals that are introduced to a new location and cause harm—can also lead to destruction of resources and biodiversity loss. In Brazil, for example, manufacturers and large-farm owners introduced eucalyptus into the ecosystem as an agricultural crop because of worldwide demand for wood pulp. Eucalyptus, which grows quickly and has chemicals in its roots that can stop other plants from growing, negatively affects the native biodiversity.

As overexploitation of resources damages the planet in various ways, protecting Earth’s natural resources demands conservation to combat that damage. Conservation does not just protect habitats and the plants and animals in them; it also helps the people who rely on these resources. Conserving forests can also help combat climate change, because trees take in carbon that is released from burning fuels. Conservation also helps provide humans and animals with food security, because diverse ecosystems keep food webs intact. Loss of biodiversity in nature can also have an economic impact. The fishing industry, for example, is likely to lose revenue because of overfishing, which has been exacerbated by worldwide increases in fish consumption.

Overexploitation of Resources

While human population growth and demand have contributed to overexploitation, there are other major factors contributing to biodiversity loss. Mismanagement of land and natural resources worldwide is directly tied to the history of colonialism. Prior to the colonial era, Indigenous people often lived sustainably off of the land, largely without degrading it. However, when European colonizers arrived and began stripping those lands of resources, the green spaces and biodiversity began declining. Even today, lands managed by Indigenous people have higher or similar biodiversity compared to government-protected lands, and Indigenous people have conserved more land than nonindigenous governments.

Overexploitation of resources can take many forms. In Indonesia, European colonizers began destroying forests to harvest palm oil. Even after achieving independence, the country ramped up its palm oil production to fulfill worldwide demand, causing a significant area of forest land to be lost. Similarly, the worldwide demand for minerals used in smartphones and computers, like cobalt, has facilitated unsustainable mining practices in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In an effort to mine as much as possible, the companies have committed human rights violations and degraded the land with toxins.

The effects of colonization can still be seen in conservation efforts today. In Kenya, conservancies are often run by White landowners. They focus on protecting animals that are appealing to Western tourists, like African elephants (Loxodonta), instead of animals that are important to local Indigenous groups, and they often do not share their profits with the local community. Indigenous groups in Kenya, who have long histories of cattle ranching for their cultural traditions and livelihoods, are barred from grazing their animals on the conserved land they previously accessed. This has caused tension between conservancies and Indigenous people, and it has even resulted in violence.

Biodiversity Loss and Extinction

Declining biodiversity is closely intertwined with species extinction, which is one of the most severe negative outcomes of overexploitation. While extinction is a normal process of nature, the rate at which it is happening today is not. Scientists estimate that current extinction rates are about a thousand times higher now than would be expected based on the fossil record, and that we may be experiencing a mass extinction event, which is when 75 percent or more species are lost at a time.

One species threatened by extinction is a small porpoise called the vaquita (Phocoena sinus). With around 10 individuals remaining in the wild as of 2024, the vaquita is the world’s most endangered marine mammal. They only live in the northern part of the Gulf of California, and their biggest threat is an illegal fishery for the totoaba fish (Totoaba macdonaldi). The vaquita gets caught and tangled in the nets used to catch the totoaba, which are themselves endangered.

Despite conservation efforts, the vaquita may go extinct in the next few years if threats continue.

Types of Conservation

Many Indigenous people have been using sustainable land, animal, and resource management practices for generations. For example, the Menominee tribe in the U.S. state of Wisconsin has developed a method of logging that honors their spiritual beliefs while being validated by the scientific method. Refined over more than 150 years, this approach strengthens forests. The Menominee people cut down weaker trees and leave stronger ones behind, carefully picking out which trees they want to cut down instead of clearing an entire area. Additionally, they only cut down trees in the winter when the ground will be hard and frozen, making it less easily damaged by the falling trees. Because they have used this process for such a long time, Menominee forests are some of the hardiest forests in the area and have been praised for their high-quality wood and their vibrant biodiversity.

Another example of Indigenous conservation is the cultural burning practices of Indigenous, or Aboriginal, people of Australia. Prior to the colonization of Australia, Aboriginal people in areas like Tasmania used controlled fires to clear out dry vegetation and trigger new plant growth. This helped conserve the habitat by stopping the buildup of fuel that could trigger damaging wildfires. When Europeans came into Australia, they discouraged this practice. Today, however, the Australian government is learning about fire practices from the Aboriginal people to manage plant growth and stop bigger fires from happening.

Other regional, national and international efforts have been made to increase conservation. At an international level, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) monitors the worldwide trade of animals and bans the sale of endangered animals. In the United States, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) protects endangered species. In addition to prohibiting any activity that would harm an endangered animal or plant, it also stops people from selling endangered species within the United States and internationally. Conservation practices and policies in the United States also include the removal of invasive species and setting aside protected land for wildlife and plants. The European Union’s Habitats Directive is similar to the ESA in that its goal is to protect species from harm and extinction, but it does so by maintaining natural habitats.

Many of these laws have been effective in protecting different species. Animals, such as grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis), bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) and California condors (Gymnogyps californianus), have recovered from near extinction thanks to conservation action under the ESA. Despite these successes, more than 41,000 species worldwide are estimated to be at risk of extinction.