Volume 6 • Issue 1 • 1000e162 J Bioremed Biodeg ISSN: 2155-6199 JBRBD, an open access journal Research Article Open Access Ramakrishnan, J Bioremed Biodeg 2015, 6:1 http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2155-6199.1000e162 Editorial Open Access Bioremediation & Biodegradation Resources are substances that are available and have values and demands for them. Several substances that are naturally occurring are extracted, puriied and value-added for the economic reasons. hese relatively unchanged natural resources, because of their high values or demands, make human beings industrious and even prosperous in contrast to those which are created by other human activities such as agriculture and art and cultural activities. he renewable nature of resources, either living or non-living, depends on their rates of replacement. he non-living natural resources are available almost in ixed amounts; their standing stocks are diminishing, not replaced compared to their rates of consumption. Both the renewable and non-renewable natural resources constitute the ‘natural capital’ that determines the wealth and status in the global economy. In the recent years, the unforeseeable increases in the demands on the natural resources have led to their depletion that has become a chief source of human social conlicts. Human resources, the 7-billion people on this planet now, consume several other natural resources at higher rates than they could create or replace them. Freshwater, oil, natural gas, phosphorus, coal and rare earth elements are the major resources whose stocks are declining faster [1]. hough the freshwater resources are only 2.5% of the total volume of the global water resources, it is enough for the 7-billions. But they are distributed unevenly, poorly managed, wasted, and polluted. With annual water supplies dropping below 1000 m 3 per person, freshwater will be scarcer for about 1.8 billion people by 2025 [2]. he U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has estimated that the global crude oil proved reserves are about 16456 billion barrels at the end of 2013 [3]. While the formation of oil reserves takes 50-300 million years, half of these reserves has been consumed in the last 125 years. he current rates of their consumption will deplete these resources by the next 46 years. Likewise, the natural gas proved reserves of 6846 trillion cubic feet in 2013 will only meet the human consumption for the next 54 years. Phosphate rocks are formed from seabed to uplit and weathering that takes about 10-15 million years. he current reserves are about 15000 million tonnes and are concerted in their geographical distributions to China, Morocco and USA. he ‘global peak P’ will be around 2034, and these reserves will be depleted in 50-100 years. he world proved coal reserves of 861 billion tonnes can meet another 113 years of global coal production though the coal among any other fossil fuels has the largest reserves to production (R/P) ratio [4]. Among the rare earth elements, scandium and terbium are extensively used from the magnets in turbines to the electronic circuits. China meets about 97% of the global demand while the global reserves are not fully identiied. Ironically, what is being created massively due to the current human consumption patterns are wastes. hey are of variable proportions afecting the environmental quality from at unpredictable spatial scales. Globally, rubbish is a conspicuous environmental burden by human civilization, generated faster than several other pollutants. he World Bank report suggests that the peak global solid waste generation would be around 2025, with 6 million tonnes per day [5,6]. here are seasonal, cultural and the rich-poor inluences on the creation as well as the composition of wastes. heir management with a ‘waste hierarchy’ aims at their prevention, followed by re-use, recycling, recovery and disposal. All these options target extracting maximum practical beneits of natural resources with a minimum amount being disposed. Life cycle thinking and assessment is critical for the extraction, puriication, making of products, distribution, usage, to disposal since all products and services have environmental consequences. Waste management can then be pursued relatively easily by three R’s- ‘Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.’ hese options require human ingenuity and endeavours, and they will be as demanding as those three R’s of Sir William Curtis suggested for human development. But, human beings are vulnerable even to their own thinking capabilities which are oten laden with fallacies such as egocentrism, omniscience, omnipotence and invulnerability [7,8]. Probably, the ‘Other three Rs’ such as reasoning, resilience and responsibility as key problem solving skills are very much needed to sustain human life for long since several natural resources becoming scarcer, with wastes being generated at colossal magnitudes. Transformation of wastes into useful and probably lesser valuable products provides new economic opportunities with science and technological underpinnings. he collection and treatment of wastes that maximise their values can make them become very important anthropogenic resources for future exploitation. Several carbon- containing wastes are now considered suitable for the bioeconomy, which involves biological feedstocks or biotechnological processes to generate economic inputs [9]. For bioeconomy, the biological agents of signiicance are microorganisms that are tiny and invisible to human eyes, plants and animals. Presently, the stocks of natural capital are to be replenished or else there are risks of local, regional or global collapse of economies, based chiely on materials and services. Both in the short as well as in the long term, high consumption rates can change the overall stock and low of resources, with concomitant changes in their values. he conservation of natural resources is now valued more than ever before. But, the global stocks of natural assets include all living things besides water, air, soil and minerals. Native plants and animals, ecosystems and habitats deliver environmental products and beneits that are now referred to as ecosystem services and considered as capital assets to sustain and enhance the lives of all the living beings. here is still a poor understanding of the total stocks and complexities of natural living assets in their relationships with environments, including those *Corresponding author: Ramakrishna B, Division of Microbiology, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110012, India, Tel: +91 11 25847649; Fax: +91 11 25847649; E-mail: ramakrishnanbala@yahoo.com; brama@iari.res.in Received December 19, 2014; Accepted December 20, 2014; Published December 22, 2014 Citation: Ramakrishnan B (2015) Three R’s For Conservation of Natural Resources. J Bioremed Biodeg 6: e162 doi:10.4172/2155-6199.1000e162 Copyright: © 2015 Ramakrishnan B. This is an open-a ccess article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Three R’s For Conservation of Natural Resources Ramakrishnan B* Division of Microbiology, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110012, India