Natural Resources

Renewable resources (water, forests, sunlight, wind, soil fertility) can replenish naturally, but only if we use them more slowly than they regenerate. Non-renewable resources (coal, oil, gas, minerals) exist in fixed stocks formed over millions of years and cannot be replaced on human timescales. A renewable resource used too fast behaves like a non-renewable one: a forest cut faster than it regrows is effectively being mined.

Forests give timber, fuelwood, bamboo, medicinal plants and food (non-timber forest produce), and they provide services that are harder to price: soil protection, water regulation, carbon storage and habitat. Roughly a quarter of India’s land area is under forest and tree cover (India State of Forest Report 2023).

Causes of deforestation

• Clearing land for agriculture and settlement
• Commercial timber extraction and fuelwood collection
• Mining, roads, dams and industrial projects
• Forest fires and overgrazing

Effects

Soil erosion and landslides, siltation of rivers, floods, loss of biodiversity, loss of carbon storage, and the loss of livelihoods for forest-dependent people.

Case studies

• Chipko movement (1973, Uttarakhand): villagers, many of them women, hugged trees to stop commercial felling, giving India a model of non-violent forest protection.
• Silent Valley (Kerala): a proposed hydroelectric dam threatened a rare rainforest; public campaigns led to the project being shelved and the area becoming a national park in 1984.
• Amazon rainforest: cattle ranching, soy farming and logging have cleared large areas, with global climate and biodiversity consequences.

Many of India’s richest forests and richest mineral belts overlap with the homes of Adivasi communities. Large projects bring national benefits, but those who lose land, forest access and sacred sites often receive little.

• Dams: the Sardar Sarovar project on the Narmada submerged forests and farmland and displaced very large numbers of people, many of them tribal, and became a landmark resettlement controversy.
• Mining: the Niyamgiri hills in Odisha, sacred to the Dongria Kondh, were at the centre of a bauxite mining dispute. In 2013 the Supreme Court asked village councils (gram sabhas) to decide, and they rejected the mine.
• Rights: the Forest Rights Act, 2006 recognises the individual and community rights of forest-dwelling communities over land, forest produce and management.

Only a tiny share of Earth’s water is accessible fresh water. India supports a very large population on a limited supply, and it is the world’s largest user of groundwater, mostly for irrigation.

• Over-use of groundwater: pumping faster than recharge lowers water tables, dries wells and, in coastal areas, lets seawater intrude.
• Surface water: diversion for cities, farms and industry leaves rivers short of water for ecosystems.
• Pollution: contamination makes available water unusable, a problem taken up in Module 5.

Floods are worsened by deforestation, encroachment on floodplains and wetlands, and concrete cities; drought follows rainfall failure but is deepened by over-extraction. Chennai has seen both extremes: the devastating floods of December 2015 and the near-empty reservoirs of mid-2019.

Conflicts over water

• Cauvery (Tamil Nadu and Karnataka): a long-running inter-state dispute over sharing river water, repeatedly taken to tribunals and the Supreme Court.
• The Nile (Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia): tension over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam upstream.
• Mekong: dams in upstream countries affect fisheries and farming downstream.

Dams: benefits and problems

Metals (iron, aluminium, copper), non-metals (limestone, mica) and fuels (coal, oil) are extracted by mining. Mining supplies industry, but opencast mining strips vegetation and topsoil, produces tailings, contaminates water with acids and heavy metals, and can leave dust and landscape scars. Illegal mining in Goa and Karnataka’s Bellary region drew national attention to these costs.

The world produces enough food overall, yet hunger and malnutrition persist alongside waste and obesity, because the problem is mainly distribution and poverty, not only production.

• Modern agriculture: the Green Revolution raised yields with high-yielding seeds, irrigation, fertiliser and pesticide, but also brought fertiliser run-off, loss of crop diversity and falling water tables.
• Pesticides: repeated spraying of endosulfan on cashew plantations in Kasaragod (Kerala) was linked to serious health problems in nearby villages and led to a ban.
• Waterlogging and salinity: over-irrigation without drainage raises the water table and leaves salts on the soil surface, reducing yields.
• Overgrazing: too many animals strip grass cover and speed up erosion and desertification.

Energy demand grows with population and income. Fossil fuels still supply most of the world’s energy, and burning them is the main source of carbon dioxide.

Nuclear power is non-renewable (it depends on uranium) but emits very little carbon; its debate is about safety and waste.

Land is the base for food, forests, housing and industry, but it is easily degraded. Soil forms very slowly (centimetres over centuries) and can be lost within a few seasons.

• Soil erosion: removal of topsoil by water and wind, worst on bare, sloping or over-grazed land
• Desertification: degradation of dry lands into desert-like conditions through over-grazing, over-cultivation and drought; roughly 30% of India’s land is classed as degraded (ISRO atlas)
• Man-induced landslides: unplanned road cutting, quarrying and clearing of slopes. The 2024 Wayanad landslides in Kerala, in a heavy-rain, steep and modified landscape, killed hundreds of people.

Individual choices matter because resources are consumed through households, campuses and workplaces.

• Save water: fix leaks, harvest rain, reuse greywater
• Save energy: efficient appliances, switch off, walk, cycle or use public transport
• Reduce, reuse, repair and recycle; avoid single-use items
• Eat less food waste, favour local and seasonal food
• Plant and protect trees; support responsible products and policies

Resources are not shared evenly: a small share of the world’s people consumes a large share of its resources, while many lack clean water and energy. Equity means fair access within and between generations; a sustainable lifestyle keeps our ecological footprint within what the Earth can regenerate. Each year, humanity’s demand passes what nature can renew by late July, a date called Earth Overshoot Day.