An ecological resource is anything required by an organism for normal maintenance growth, and reproduction. Examples include habitat, food, water and shelter. And economic resource is anything obtained from the environment (the earth’s life support system) to meet human needs and wants. Examples include food, water, shelter, manufactured goods, transportation’s, communication, and recreation. On our short human time scale, we classify the material resources we get from the environment as renewable, potentially renewable, or nonrenewable.
Some resources, such as solar energy, fresh air, winds, fresh surface water, fertile soil, and wild edible plants, are directly available for use by us and other organisms. Other resources, such a petroleum, iron, groundwater, and modern crops, aren’t directly available. They become useful to us only with some effort and technological ingenuity. Petroleum, for example, was a mysterious fluid until we learned how to find, extract, and convert it into gasoline, heating oil, and other products that could be sold at affordable prices.
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