ABSTRACT

The principal objective of organic resource management is to obtain the maximum production without impairing the renewability of the resource. Although forests, particularly in Europe, have been managed since at least medieval times, their level of management is relatively low compared with agriculture. While most of the biosphere’s existing ecosystems have been, and continue to be, directly or indirectly modified or completely altered by human activity, a high proportion are deliberately managed in order to facilitate the exploitation of a particular organic resource, i.e. a stock of material of use or of value to man. Exploitation of the marine ecosystem has concentrated on those animals whose size and population numbers, in particular areas, permit the greatest ease of catching and which, because of custom or prejudice have been favoured more than others as food. Forest growth results in the long-term immobilisation of a large proportion of the ecosystem’s nutrient capital in the wood.