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Englishhhhhhhhh: 3.5 Natural Resources
Englishhhhhhhhh: 3.5 Natural Resources
Englishhhhhhhhh: 3.5 Natural Resources
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BOX 3.4
Notes on the assessment of the natural resouree
endowment of the world
1. The Food and Agricuhure production yearbook
(l99tl has been used as rhe source for total land area.
In some countries, inland water surfaces make up a
considerable proportion of the area, but these surfaces
have been included. Greenland and Antarctica are
omitted from the calculation since, even without a
moratorium on the use of Antarctica's resources. the
exploitation of the surface through mainly u.ry ihi.k
ice is not a commercial proposition.
2. The calculation of the amounr of productive land
is-a-mafter of greater subiectiviry than the calculation
of the other four resources. Only about 11 per cent of
the total land surface of the world is under irable and
permanent crops, compared with 25 per cent defined as
natural pasrure, 30 per cent as forest and woodland,
and-34 per cent classed as .orher land' (waste, cities) oi
fresh water (2.5 per cenr). The value of piod,r.iio.,
from the 11 per cent under crops is, ho:wever, far
greater per unit of area than the value of production
from forest or from natural pasture, much of the latter
being semi-deseft, optimistically classed as pasture. In
time, sorne of the natural pasture and forest will
probably be improved or cleared for cultivation, but it
would be naive to assume that the potential is very
gr€at or that changes could take place quickly, since
human setlemenr has already spread to thb farthest
corners, taking in the best land, over millennia in some
regions and cenruries in others. A funher complication
. 'in assessintgh e value of culrivatedl and is thelact that
in South, Southeast and East Asia, about half of rhe
land is double-cropped, with the result thar the area
harvested exceeds the area of cropland by as much as
50 per cent in some countries.
In order to take into account the differences in
producivity of the different rypes of,land use, in the
calculations made forthis chaprerthearea of arable land
has not been changed, whereas forest has been reduced
to a fifth of its area, and natural pasture to a tenth. Not
surprisingly the proportion of the national area of
different countries under each of the four categories of
land use noted above varies enormously. Tf,us, for
example, 70 per cent of the area of Norwav is in the
'other'category, as is 9.! per cent of the area of Oman,
aJmgst
4l belng waste land. In Uruguay, 76 per."rrt oi
the land is classed as natural pasftre,-in the Falkland
Islands 97.5 per cent. In Finlani 10 per cent ofthe total
area is occupied by lakes and rivers. The overwhelming
importance of herbaceous plants in the wodd food
supply must be stressed.A bout 90 per cent of the direct
human food comes from such planG, as does 90 per cent
of animal food. Shrubs and small trees provide fiuit, oils
and beveragesw, hile larger trees
usedf or fuelwood and constructi"orn, -"l*ort.*clusively