Resource conservation and management

This book is designed to be used in introduc tory courses on resource conservation and manage ment ranging in length from one quarter to two semesters. My goals for the book are to:
cover the diverse materials of an introductory course on resource conservation and management in an accurate, balanced, and interesting way without the use of mathematics or complex chemi cal and biological information

■help your students discover that dealing with resource issues is fun, interesting, and important to their lives

allow you to use the material in a flexible manner to meet your needs, depending on course length and what you believe are the important topics.
show how resource and environmental problems are interrelated and must be understood and dealt with on a local, regional, national, and global basis.

give a realistic but hopeful view of how much has been done and what remains to be done in sustaining the earth.

indicate what students can do in their personal lives and lifestyles to help sustain rather than degrade the earth's life-support systems.

■ introduce students to key concepts and principles that govern how nature works and apply them to possible solutions to problems of resource conser vation and management

This last goal is a key feature of this book. Most introductory textbooks in this field do not make effec tive use of basic principles and concepts to help stu dents understand resource use and management issues. Thus, they give students no way to tie together and evaluate the massive amount of information in the field.