Conservation is generally associated with the protection of natural resources, while preservation is associated with the protection of buildings, objects, and landscapes. Put simply conservation seeks the proper use of nature, while preservation seeks the protection of nature from use.
The ideas of conservation and preservation are often closely related, but they refer to slightly different approaches to protecting natural resources and cultural heritage. Conservation focuses on the responsible use and management of resources, while preservation prioritizes protecting resources from any human use or impact.
During the early 20th century, the environmental movement gave rise to two distinct groups: those who advocated for conservation and those who advocated for preservation.
Conservationists believed in the importance of regulating the human activity to ensure the sustainable use of natural resources, while preservationists sought to minimize or eliminate human impact on the environment altogether.
Conservations Vs Preservation – A Brief History
When it comes to protecting our natural resources and cultural heritage, the concepts of conservation and preservation are important to understand.
The National Park Service explains that both terms involve some degree of protection, but they approach it in different ways. Conservation aims to ensure the responsible use and management of resources, while preservation prioritizes protecting resources from human use or impact.
Looking back to the early 20th century, when the environmental movement first began, two distinct concepts emerged among researchers and scientists. Both concepts were focused on protecting the environment and promoting sustainable practices, but they proposed different plans of action.
While the conservation approach sought to regulate human activity to ensure the sustainable use of natural resources, the preservation approach aimed to minimize or eliminate human impact on the environment altogether.
which statement is true about conservation versus preservation
To conservationists, human activity was the root of the entire degradation scenario. That’s why they aimed to regulate human use and look for ways to enhance the economy at the same time.
Preservationists believed in the same concept but wanted to take more drastic measures compared to conservationists. They sought to eliminate human use of the environment and preserve all living beings’ value, whether they’re useful to human existence or not.
The first person to introduce the preservationist movement was Aldo Leopold, also known as the father of ecology.
He created a wilderness preservation program to benefit the well-being of all living things on earth. His idea was to preserve ecology in its purest form and revitalize the original sustainability of the planet.
However, conservationists tried to limit this comprehensive approach by finding a middle ground between environmental protection and human consumption. Thus, the World Wildlife Fund came into being in 1961.
This approach aimed to conserve spaces teeming with wildlife in Africa, but with an economic motive of commercializing them with game-hunting areas.
The formulation of these organizations led to a heated debate between the two schools of thought. Until a formal agreement was bought about political intervention to seek sustainable practices for environmental conservation.
What Is Conservation?
Conservation is the sustainable use of natural resources. Our natural resources include wildlife, air, water, and what we get from earth. Some of our natural resources are renewable, while others, unfortunately, are not.
Some examples of renewable resources are water, timber, and sunlight. Conservation of renewable natural resources means limiting their consumption to a rate slower than their replacement rate. Non-renewable natural resources – like our fossil fuels – can be conserved by maintaining a sufficient amount to be utilized by future generations.
The focus of natural resource conservation is on the needs and interests of people; these needs may fall under biological, cultural, recreational, or economic.
What Is Preservation?
Preservation, on the other hand, means maintaining the present state of something. Preservation of natural resources is mainly focused on resources that have not been touched by humans.
The main concern for preserving some resources is that mankind has been excessively utilizing them for housing, farming, industry, tourism, and other human development purposes, which has damaged their natural beauty.
Difference Between Conservation And Preservation
The philosophy behind the conservation of natural resources is that their use is a necessity for human progress and development; however, conservationists stress that changes should not be wasteful or result in the degradation of the environment.
Conservation is aimed at reducing the ‘wear and tear’ of the Earth. Preservation, on the other hand, aims to keep the resources in a pristine state.
Conservationists try as much as possible to manage the resources to make them more abundant and allow people to benefit from them; preservationists want to keep things as they are, in the belief that everything and everyone has the right to live, thus allowing trees, for example, to grow without being touched by humans.
Often, preservation is done to environments that were already damaged. Conversely, conservation is done to prevent the damage or destruction before it causes more serious problems. Most of the time, archival institutions group conservation and preservation together.
This is mainly because many conservationists also play the role of preservationists and vice versa. Additionally, most of the ideas and methods of the two are similar. To make it more distinct and clearer, the difference between conservation and preservation is that the former is aimed at repairing the damage, while the latter seeks to prevent it from occurring in the first place.
Conservation promotes the wise utilization of resources and allows their use in a manner that ensures their continued availability. Preservation, on the other hand, discourages the use of resources in order to maintain their present state; in other words, preservation does not allow the usage of some resources.