ABSTRACT
The evolution and elaboration of modern industrial society has involved complex interactions whereby more traditional resources and fuels have been increasingly supplemented and overshadowed by newer ones made available through technological invention and innovation. There have been two basic types of specialization in the field of natural resources, one involving an intellectual separation of natural resource systems from urban/industrial areas and problems, and the other involving disciplinary specialization. Academic work in natural resources has been strongly based on the natural sciences, although the tendency has been to separate out organizationally those aspects directly related to resource exploitation or conservation. Technologies are shaped by culture and environment and any particular technology must be understood in terms of its cultural history and environmental setting. Guidance involves bringing knowledge and wisdom to bear upon the direction of society, and thus an appreciation of, and the ability to employ a society's socio-political systems.
