Every living entity has a right to live and survive on earth maintained by the natural laws of check and balance. Human activities emerge as a major driving factor causing the bulk of change, which outlines, defines and assigns different trends to the earth and its resources.

Growing concerns about the fast depleting trends of natural resource has created an urgency among scientists and conservationists together for a common platform to evolve solutions to fundamental loss of resources and environmental challenges with a mere objective to ensure healthy living and protect, restore and maintain diversity of life on earth.

Major contributing factors that affect the earth's resources include human population and climate change — the brainchild of economic activities. Under-developed countries constitute the bulk of that total having low per capita income and poverty. The population boom has not only resulted in an economic upheaval but it is also the primary cause of environmental degradation.

Populations largely need food, water, heating or cooling arrangements, and housing with a major impact on natural resources. Agricultural lands and forests are being destroyed for urbanisation and commercialisation. In this quest, it is amazing and pathetic that humans have started trespassing territory or usurping rights of other living creatures in terms of habitat shrinkage and fragmentation as the price of socio-economic and technological development.

Changing lifestyles, industrialisation, roads networks, toxic waste, terrestrial, aquatic and atmospheric pollution; receding glaciers, the depleting ozone layer and global warming leading to unpredictable droughts and weather fluctuation are critical indicators that a better relation between humans and the earth resources would serve to perpetuate limited resources on sustainable basis in face of the modern day dynamic needs and requirements.

This will not only provide an enabling and conducive environment for themselves but also for millions of other living creatures on the surface of the earth.

Protected areas and reserves are tiny remnants that provide isolated areas to wildlife as a part of their former habitat. But these have been encroached upon by the human beings by living in hilly or rich natural resource areas. Meeting their demands from meagre resources has posed not only challenging threats to biodiversity but has also been instrumental in rendering environmental degradation. Short term developmental and rehabilitation programs constitute only a fraction of an inevitable grand scale approach required for streamlining a step in the right direction.

Decrease in forest cover promotes soil erosion causing sedimentation of rivers and dams, harming fish and aquatic resources, while top fertile soil is lost causing landslides. Globally, it has been estimated that a species becomes extinct each day which tilts the natural equilibrium. Records show the extinction of rhinoceros, lion and cheetah from our country.

It has been observed that the Siberian crane migrating from Siberia was last sighted in Pakistan a decade or so ago.Each spring, flocks of waterfowls, cranes and other birds leave their winter places in southern Pakistan and India, flying northward along and across the Indus on their way to Afghanistan and then to their nesting grounds in Siberia.

Globally, 58 per cent of the worlds reefs are at risk from human activities, with about 27 per cent of reefs at high or very high risk. It has been estimated that about one quarter of the potential fish harvests in developing countries come from coral reefs. Depletion of coral reefs would affect fish production that would not only adversely affect local communities dependent on the aquatic resources but would also prove a big blow to the economy. Mangroves and their associated flora and fauna are also under tremendous mounting biotic pressure in our country.

In third world countries, dumps of trash overflowing trash-bins is an active contributor to unhygienic environment and disease while watchwords like “threatened”, “endangered”, “extinct”, “degradation”, and “over-exploitation” are quite familiar and commonly used.

In the best interest of the earth and its inmates, it becomes our primary obligation to manage natural resources on a sustainable basis, respect and honour our living planet. This can only come through appropriate socio-economic and ecologically sound policies and initiatives aiming at protection of the environment and natural resources or there is an alternate option of keeping our fingers crossed for a “Green Generation next”.