Natural resources are resources that exist without any actions of humankind. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest and cultural value. On Earth, it includes sunlight, atmosphere, water, land, all minerals along with all vegetation, and animal life.
Natural resources can be part of our natural heritage or protected in nature reserves. Particular areas (such as the rainforest in Fatu-Hiva) often feature biodiversity and geo-diversity in their ecosystems. Natural resources may be classified in different ways. Natural resources are materials and components (something that can be used) that can be found within the environment. Every man-made product is composed of natural resources (at its fundamental level).
A natural resource may exist as a separate entity such as fresh water, air, as well as any living organism such as a fish, or it may be transformed by extractives industries into an economically useful form that must be processed to obtain the resource such as metal ores, rare-earth elements, petroleum, timber and most forms of energy. Some resources are renewable resource, which means that they can be used at a certain rate and natural processes will restore them, whereas many extractive industries rely heavily on non-renewable resources that can only be extracted once.
Natural-resource allocations can be at the center of many economic and political confrontations both within and between countries. This is particularly true during periods of increasing scarcity and shortages (depletion and overconsumption of resources). Resource extraction is also a major source of human rights violations and environmental damage. The sustainable development goals and other international development agendas frequently focus on creating more sustainable resource extraction, with some scholars and researchers focused on creating economic models, such as circular economy, that rely less on resource extraction, and more on reuse, recycling and renewable resources that can be sustainably managed.
Forests
Forests are a valuable resource providing food, shelter, wildlife habitat, fuel, and daily supplies such as medicinal ingredients and paper. Forests play an important role in balancing the Earth’s CO2 supply and exchange, acting as a key link between the atmosphere, geosphere, and hydrosphere. Tropical rainforests, in particular, house an immense diversity of species, more capable of adapting to, and therefore surviving, changing environmental conditions than monoculture forests. This diversity also provides habitat for numerous animal species and is an important source of medicinal ingredients. The main issues concerning forest management are depletion due to natural causes (fires and infestations) or human activity (clear-cutting, burning, land conversion), and monitoring of health and growth for effective commercial exploitation and conservation.
Agriculture
A major cause of deforestation around kikuyu area is as a result of local subsistence activities by farmers and villagers who rely on forestlands for agriculture and fuel wood.
Logging largely exasperates this issue as farmers and colonists are able to gain access to previously impenetrable forest by following logging roads. Furthermore, with increasing human population densities, agricultural cultivation is expanding in the forests of the near kikuyu, which often results in complete deforestation.
Pollution
Human activities pollute ecosystems around the world and so is kikuyu area. Pollution (and chemical dumping) is likely to cause adverse effects on the environment due to weak environmental protection and pollution controls, coupled with the increase in urbanization and industrialization having it that Kikuyu is part of the larger Nairobi metropolitan area.
Toxic chemicals and metals that enter the environment can have detrimental effects. Organisms may absorb them through their skin or ingest them in their food or water. Animals higher in the food chain accumulate these toxins in ever increasing concentrations. As a result, top predators such as birds, fish and mammals will have high level of toxins in their bodies, which increases the risk of disease, birth defects and genetic mutation.
Population increase & Urbanization
Increased human population is the root cause of any threat to the forest, due to the increased demand for natural resources. With such rapid population increase predicted around Nairobi and particularly kikuyu
Increased waste, sanitation and pollution, as a result of urbanization, indirectly threaten the forest. This is a particular threat given that the services in many cities are unable to deal with the population growth. This inevitably leads to increased environmental issues.
Lack of good governance and institutional capacity
Corruption and lack of good governance can seriously hinder any progress towards policy changes, conservation or sustainable natural resource management in the forests. In addition, poor governance can leave to corruption, particularly with regard to the granting of logging concessions. This contributes to poor business practices and lack of incentive to move towards sustainable forestry.
As a result, the above generally leads to limited government budgets for conservation, which in turn leads to insufficient staff numbers, poor training and low morale at forestry and wildlife departments rendering them ineffective.
Solution
Coming up with strategies to protect the forests would be one of the best solution to the forests around kikuyu,
Forest ecosystems are made up of dozens of species and life forms, with sometimes complex patterns of vertical and horizontal structure. Across a large landscape, forest ecosystems are managed in a variety of ways and have many levels of human activity.
Eco-forestry
Eco-forestry is a move on saving the worlds forest. It acknowledges that sometimes, the use of trees for various human activities or reasons can be inevitable. Per se, eco-forestry underscores the need of cutting down trees in an environmentally friendly manner. It is where only cautiously selected trees are fell and transported with the least possible damage to the area. Also, eco-forestry not only calls for the preservation of the forest regions ecosystem but also allows for controlled and green timber extraction.
Law and Regulations
Due to the nature and extent of forest destruction, efforts to stop the human activities can be complemented by laws and regulation at governmental and organizational levels. As much as people increasingly become aware of deforestation consequences, some people focus more on the immediate economic gains at the expense of the long-term environmental damage.
This attitude has encourages illegal logging for timber and other valuable resources like rubber and palm oil. Therefore, stopping deforestation and preserving the natural vegetation demands rules, laws, and regulations from organizations and governments to aid in enforcing forest preservation policies. Laws on timber, wood fuel, farming, and land use among other forest resources must be advanced and enforced to limit deforestation.
