ABSTRACT
This chapter argues for adopting a certain perspective toward understanding renewable natural resources and potential future alternatives. In the argument, there is a wide variety of items that one could put under the particular definitional umbrella of renewable natural resources. The point to be underlined is that it includes at least the following categories; soil/land, forests, grasslands and rangelands, recreation, fish and wildlife, water, and air resources. A scenario is nothing more than an outline of some conceivable future state of affairs, given certain assumptions about the present and the sequence of events in the intervening period. More important, multiple scenarios can include a variety of conditions, a spectrum of potential developments, and a series of hypothetical sociopolitical and economic variables and their effects. The most dramatic transformation in images of the future is the pessimistic preoccupation and the catastrophic strain that seem to run through most scenarios.
