Standard 16

The National Geography Standards

	Natural resources are components of the natural environment that are useful to human beings. Resource management systems seek to optimize the use of resources. In the dry world, well-watered land takes on an essential role in sustaining life. Food-producing resources are too valuable to be squandered on non-essential uses.
	Road from Ouarzazate to Marrakesh, Morocco - In the Draa river valley of Morocco, the villages are perched above the green valley floor. You can see three different horizontal bands in this photograph: the green valley, the brown hillsides (slightly green since it is the end of the wet season), and the darker brown village lineations in between. Where water is scarce and population pressures are increasing, the land along the river is kept in agriculture pursuits while the villages occupy less desirable areas above the "oasis." The pattern holds true across North Africa and the Middle East.
	South of the Atlas Mountains - Terracing is another traditional resource management strategy in mountain settings around the world, not just in Asia. Here the rocks of the field have been fashioned into walls and irrigation channels. Though you cannot see the water, you can see the laundry drying on the rock walls. Terracing makes it possible to push agriculture higher up the hillsides, thus expanding arable land.
	High-Seas Pollock Fisheries in the Northern Pacific - The Law of the Sea Convention legitimized the creation of 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zones. When the EEZ boundaries were projected into the Bering Sea, a pocket of High Seas, known as the "Donut Hole," came into being. Being open to fishing from all nations without regulation, the pollock fishery in the Donut Hole was facing collapse. A management convention was signed in 1994 to regulate the pollock fishery. Source: U.S. National Intelligence Council, Law of the Sea: The End Game, March 1996.

A Sample Question from the National Geography Challenge 1996 (Grades 10-12) which illustrates . . .

STANDARD 16 -- NATURAL RESOURCES

When does a component of the physical environment become a resource?

1. It is always a resource regardless of need or the human perception of its value.
2. It becomes a resource when an economic value is ascribed to it.
3. It becomes a resource only when it is renewable.
4. It becomes a resource when it is a commodity of international trade.