What is conservation?

What does the word CONSERVATION mean to you?

Have you ever thought about ways in which human activities affect the countryside and wildlife? These are just a few of the problems:-

Farming Methods

Use of chemicals on the land
The effects of felling trees and uprooting hedges

Recreation

Killing animals and plants (e.g. plant collection, over fishing, over hunting, egg collecting, insect collecting).
Blood sports (e.g. fox hunting, badger baiting, hare coursing, wildfowling, game bird shooting).
Accidental killing of plants and animals (e.g. careless fire lighters and campers, flower pickers, litter
spreading etc.).

Industrialisation

Building houses, factories, towns, cities and roads.
Disposing of the by-products of industry such as slag heaps, waste heaps, air and water pollution, dangerous
chemicals and nuclear waste.
Using renewable materials (e.g. trees for making paper, crops, animals for food etc.).
Using non-renewable resources (e.g. minerals, coal and oil).

Methods of Conservation

By law
Giving protection to animals and plant species or special areas of land or water.

Restoration
To restore unsightly countryside (e.g. waste tips and slag heaps etc.).

Alternative Energy
A need to find alternative resources to replace coal and oil etc.

Nature Reserves and Zoos
Of special value in preserving rare animal species.

Recycling
Reprocessing of unwanted products (e.g. newspapers, scrap metals, glass and sewage etc.).

Education
Making more people aware of the need to protect and preserve the environment through schools, youth organizations and the media.

These are just a few point to get you thinking about CONSERVATION and the part you can play in preserving and protecting some of the truly marvelous things we still have left in the world today - but which we may lose 'tomorrow' unless more people take an interest in them.