NCERT Solutions for Exploring Society: India and Beyond Chapter 1 Natural Resources and Their Use

About this chapter

An element of Nature becomes a resource only when humans can actually use it. The chapter sets three conditions: it must be technologically accessible , its exploitation must be economically feasible , and it must be culturally acceptable . Petroleum too deep to reach, or trees in a sacred grove, are therefore not resources. Resources can be categorised in more than one way. By use — resources essential for life (air, water, soil), resources for materials (wood, marble, coal, gold) and resources for energy (coal, water, petroleum, natural gas, sunlight, wind). By renewability — renewable and non-renewable. Nature works by restoration (returning to a healthy state) and regeneration (creating new life), in cycles where nothing is waste. A resource stays renewable only while that rhythm is un

• Theme: India and the World: Land and the People
• Nature as sacred in indigenous traditions
• Tracing everyday things back to Nature
• Criteria for categorising natural resources
• Traditional restraint in fishing, and the decline of tuna
• A research study of renewable resources in your region
• Non-renewables in daily use, and their renewable substitutes
• Fig. 1.11
• A resource conflict in the international context
• The ‘Paradox of Plenty’