Area of Focus: Conservation and Recreation

Created: Jan 06, 2007
Updated: Aug 08, 2007

Conservation and Recreation

Keywords

minerals, agriculture, pesticides, erosion, nitrogen cycle, nutrient cycling, decomposition, biota, ecosystems, aeration, hydration, weathering, bedrock, carbon, soil pH, soil temperature, viruses, rhizosphere, decomposition, compost, legumes, mychorrhiza, phosphorus, sulfur, salts, saline soils, soil profile, soil structure, soil as a medium for life, soil ecosystems, microbes, microfauna, microflora, micronutrient, biogeochemical cycling, travel footprint, soil moisture, climate change, phytoremediation, ultrabacteria, brownfields, toxics, farming, water pollution, biodiversity, groundwater, soil conservation, top soils, soil profile, mycorrhiza, soil pH, soil symbiosis

Recreation is a major driving force protecting the environment, but can also cause environmental impacts and significantly alter local economies. Recreation can be largely passive (e.g. birding, vista points, or photography), low impact (e.g. designated hiking trails with limited permits), or high impact (e.g. horse trails/off-road vehicles or motorboats). The level of access and kind of access (e.g. walk-in, bus, individual car, canoe, motorized boats), alter the kinds of impacts and conservation potential. Hunters, sports fishers, rockhounds, and mushroom collectors are extractive forms of recreation. In developing nations, the taking of lands for national parks can have major impacts on local peoples and their economics.

Featured Organization

Photo source

TREC (Teens for Recreation and Environmental Conservation) is an outdoor expedition level program designed to expose multi-ethnic teens to environmental education, urban conservation and stewardship, while creating an environment for community leadership and empowerment.

Related WiserEarth Portals

Conservation, Conservation Area Creation, Conservation Area Protection, Conservation Policy, Environmental Education, Land Stewardship, Natural Resource Conservation, Natural Resource Education, Practical Conservation, and Sustainable Fishing

Featured Resource

The Blue Revolution: Integrated Land and Water Resources Management

This update to Blue Revolution provides further evidence of the need to integrate land management decision-making into the process of integrated water resources management. It presents the key issues involved in finding the balance between the competing demands for land and water: for food and other forms of economic production, for sustaining livelihoods, and for conservation, amenity, recreation and the requirements of the environment. It also advocates the means and methodologies for addressing them.

A new chapter, Policies, Power and Perversity, describes the perverse outcomes that can result from present, often myth-based, land and water policies which do not consider these land and water interactions. New research and case studies involving ILWRM concepts are presented for the Panama Canal catchments and in relation to afforestation proposals for the UK Midlands.

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