Chapter 14 : NATURAL RESOURCES

"Every country has natural resources"

Every country deserves the right to own and manage their natural resources.

Every country deserves the right to use their natural resources for whatever they choose to use it for.

It is their God given blessings, It is naturally their's.

"Africa is among one of the most blessed continent with natural resources by God the creator"

Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications by humans.

Natural resources are those blessings that God the creator entrusted in the hands of every continent or country it falls in.

This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest, cultural value, human benefits and development.

Earth's many natural resources, including oil, water, soil, minerals, wind, and sunlight, are unevenly distributed on Earth's surface. In other words, resources are concentrated in specific places because of the processes by which they form.

From an energy perspective, primary fuels such as coal, oil, natural gas, and uranium are natural resources. Moreover, flows in nature like wind, and hydro are also natural resources. Unlike flows, primary fuels are in deposits within the Earth that must be discovered and extracted.

Natural resource may exist as a separate entity such as fresh water, air, as well as any living organism such as a fish, or it may be transformed by extractivist industries into an economically useful form that must be processed to obtain the resource such as metal ores, rare-earth elements, petroleum, timber and most forms of energy.

Some resources are renewable resource, which means that they can be used at a certain rate and natural processes will restore them, whereas many extractive industries rely heavily on non-renewable resources that can only be extracted once.

Natural-resource allocations can be at the center of many economic and political confrontations both within and between countries.

This is particularly true during periods of increasing scarcity and shortages (depletion and overconsumption of resources).

Resource extraction is also a major source of human rights violations and environmental damage.

The Sustainable Development Goals and other international development agendas frequently focus on creating more sustainable resource extraction, with some scholars and researchers focused on creating economic models, such as circular economy, that rely less on resource extraction, and more on reuse, recycling and renewable resources that can be sustainably managed.

Potential resources: Resources that are known to exist, but have not been utilized yet. These may be used in the future. For example, petroleum in sedimentary rocks that, until pulled out and put to use remains a potential resource.

Actual resources: Resources that have been surveyed, quantified and qualified, and are currently used in development. These are typically dependent on technology and level of their feasibility. E.g.: Wood processing

Reserves: The part of an actual resource that can be developed profitably in the future.

Stocks: Resources that have been surveyed, but cannot be used due to lack of technology. E.g.: Hydrogen vehicle

Renewable resources: These resources can be replenished naturally. Some of these resources, like solar energy, air, wind, water, etc. are continuously available and their quantities are not noticeably affected by human consumption.

Though many renewable resources do not have such a rapid recovery rate, these resources are susceptible to depletion by over-use.

Resources from a human use perspective are classified as renewable so long as the rate of replenishment/recovery exceeds that of the rate of consumption. They replenish easily compared to non-renewable resources.

on-renewable resources: These resources are formed over a long geological time period in the environment and cannot be renewed easily. Minerals are the most common resource included in this category.

From the human perspective, resources are non-renewable when their rate of consumption exceeds the rate of replenishment/recovery; a good example of this are fossil fuels, which are in this category because their rate of formation is extremely slow (potentially millions of years), meaning they are considered non-renewable.

Some resources naturally deplete in amount without human interference, the most notable of these being radio-active elements such as uranium, which naturally decay into heavy metals. Of these, the metallic minerals can be re-used by recycling them, but coal and petroleum cannot be recycled. Once they are completely used they take millions of years to replenish.

Individual Resources: Resources owned privately by individuals. These include plots, houses, plantations, pastures, ponds, etc.

Community Resources: Resources which are accessible to all the members of a community. E.g.: Cemeteries

National Resources: Essentially, All the individual and community resources belong to the nation. The nation has legal powers to acquire them for public welfare.

These also include minerals, forests and wildlife within the political boundaries and Exclusive economic zone.

International Resources: These resources are regulated by international organizations. E.g.: International waters.

Resource extraction involves any activity that withdraws resources from nature. This can range in scale from the traditional use of preindustrial societies to global industry.

Extractive industries are, along with agriculture, the basis of the primary sector of the economy. Extraction produces raw material, which is then processed to add value. Examples of extractive industries are hunting, trapping, mining, oil and gas drilling, and forestry.

Natural resources can add substantial amounts to a country's wealth; however, a sudden inflow of money caused by a resource boom can create social problems including inflation harming other industries ("Dutch disease") and corruption, leading to inequality and underdevelopment, this is known as the "resource curse". that has been inflicted on Africa long ago.

Extractive industries represent a large growing activity in many less-developed countries but the wealth generated does not always lead to sustainable and inclusive growth.

People often accuse extractive industry businesses as acting only to maximize short-term value, implying that less-developed countries are vulnerable to powerful corporations.

Alternatively, host governments are often assumed to be only maximizing immediate revenue. Researchers argue there are areas of common interest where development goals and business cross.

These present opportunities for international governmental agencies to engage with the private sector and host governments through revenue management and expenditure accountability, infrastructure development, employment creation, skills and enterprise development, and impacts on children, especially girls and women.

A strong civil society can play an important role in ensuring the effective management of natural resources.

Norway can serve as a role model in this regard as it has good institutions and open and dynamic public debate with strong civil society actors that provide an effective checks and balances system for the government's management of extractive industries, such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a global standard for the good governance of oil, gas and mineral resources.

It seeks to address the key governance issues in the extractive sectors.

Furthermore, the natural resources in Africa has been decentralized by her colonial masters for over centuries into nothing to right home about.

"If Africa should be allowed to utilize their natural resources on their own Africa would be greater than what it is now"

It is our resources and we can handle it by ourselves,we can extract it by ourselves, moreover it is still the Africans that works as miners and extractors in the extraction teams

"Africa can do better if we are given the chance to" We are great people.