There’s enough on this planet for everyone’s needs, but not enough for everyone’s greed. Gandhi Exploitation involves living off the land or seas, such that wild animals, plants, and their products are taken for purposes ranging from food to medicines, shelter, and fiber. The term harvesting is often used synonymously with exploitation, though harvesting is more appropriate for farming and aquaculture, where we reap what we sow. In a world that seems intent on liquidating natural resources, overexploitation has become the second most important threat to the survival of the world’s birds, mam- mals, and plants (see Figure 3.8). Many of these species are threatened by subsistence hunting in tropical regions, though others are also threatened in temperate and arc- tic regions by hunting, fishing, and other forms of exploitation. Exploitation is also the third most important driver of freshwater fish extinction events, behind the ef- fects of habitat loss and introduced species (Harrison and Stiassny 1999). Thus, while problems stemming from habitat loss and degradation quite rightly receive a great deal of attention in this book, conservationists must also contend with the specter of the “empty forest” and the “empty sea.” We begin this chapter with a brief historical context of exploitation, which also pro- vides an overview of some of the diverse reasons people have for using wild popula- tions of plants and animals. This is followed by reviews of recent impacts of exploita- tion on both target and nontarget species in a variety of habitats. To understand the responses of populations, we then review the theory behind sustainability. The chap- ter ends with a consideration of the culture clash that exists between people who are concerned with resource management and people who worry about extinction risk. History of, and Motivations for, Exploitation Humans have exploited wild plants and animals since the earliest times, and most contemporary aboriginal societies remain primarily extractive in their daily quest for food, medicines, fiber, and other biotic sources of raw materials to produce a wide 8 Overexploitation John D. Reynolds and Carlos A. Peres