Environmental Principles and Concepts

Environmental Science

• Seven environmental principles and concepts

Environmental Principle No. 1: Everything is Connected to Everything Else

• The ecosystem’s elements have intricate relationships that bind components into a functional unit.
• Trees in forests provide habitats for ferns, orchids, birds, insects, and mammals.
• Decomposing plants and animals contribute to soil fertility.
• Plants provide oxygen for animal respiration, while animals furnish carbon dioxide for photosynthesis.
• Soil quality determines the type of vegetation; vegetation contributes minerals when it dies.
• The living components of an ecosystem affect and are affected by abiotic components like air, temperature, and land.
• Inter-specific relationships create a mutual dependency, requiring species to coexist.
• These relationships create dependencies, checks, and balances that form the basis of life-support systems.
• Human interaction with nature often alters ecosystems, and improperly disposed waste leads to deterioration of land and water quality, reducing their capacity to support life.
• Deforestation causes soil erosion, which, when deposited in water bodies, covers coral reefs, leading to fishery loss.
• Suspended particulates from vehicular and stationary sources can cause lung problems; war can cause wildlife and habitat destruction.
• There is a cause-and-effect chain, even when it is not always visible or observable.
• Interconnectedness can be viewed locally and globally. Environmental problems in one country can affect many others.
• Global issues require leaders to work together to find solutions.

Environmental Principle No. 2: All forms of life are Important

• All organisms have a purpose in relation to humans, other species, and the global ecosystem.
• A species extinction is like removing a piece from a jigsaw puzzle of web of life.
• Biological diversity contributes to environmental stability across community, species and genes.
• Food webs, food changes and ecological relationships link plants and animals
• Even bacteria, insects, snakes, and rats play beneficial ecological roles
• The Philippines ranks high as one of the most threatened terrestrial ecosystems, having a rich flora and fauna with an estimated:
  • 13,500 plant species
  • 80 amphibian species
  • 240 reptile species
  • 556 bird species
  • 174 mammal species
  • 300 coral species
  • 27 mangrove species
• About 75% of these species are Endemic.
• Threatened species include the:
  • Philippine eagle (Pithecophaga jefferyi)
  • Philippine crocodile (Crocodylus mindorensis)
  • Tamaraw (Bubalus mindorensis).

Environmental Principle No. 3: Everything Must go Somewhere

• By-products of consumption return to the environment, including paper, food leftovers, plastic wrappers, used containers, and animal and plant wastes.
• Metabolic by-products return to the soil, acted upon by worms, bacteria, and fungi, converting them into minerals, absorbed by plants, and eaten by animals, completing a material cycle within the ecosystem.
• Natural bacteria may not recognize or break down artificial products like plastic.
• Non-biodegradable products must undergo a different material cycle, going back to the factory for repurposing.
• The retrieval, collection, and recycling of these materials become necessary to prevent pollution of land and water habitats.
• An ecological solid waste management system is necessary for maximizing resource use.
• Ecological waste management promotes reducing, segregating, reusing, and recycling solid wastes.
• Biodegradable materials can be eaten again or composted; non-biodegradable materials should be segregated and recycled, with industries held responsible for reducing effluents.
• End-of-the-pipeline technologies are augmented by raw product technologies.
• The "polluters pay" principle intensifies the clean land, water, and air campaign.
• Waste exchange programs turn one industry's waste into another's raw products, preventing habitat destruction and deterioration.

Environmental Principle No. 4: Ours is a finite Earth

• Nature provides an abundance of resources such as food, water, energy, minerals, and air.
• Some resources are excessively extracted and slow to replenish, leading to the limits of supply.
• Fossil fuels may be exhausted in a hundred years despite taking thousands of years to produce.
• Some energy sources like water and wood are easier to replace, but pollution and extraction have made these sources less accessible.
• Diminishing forest cover results from logging, ineffective reforestation, and land conversion.
• Conservation emphasizes using only what is needed.
• The philosophy of "sapat", suggests: buy and consume only what is needed to leave some for the next generation.

Environmental Principle No. 5: Nature Knows Best

• Nature maintains balance and equilibrium through processes like nutrient cycling of nitrogen, carbon, sulfur, and phosphorus.
• Minerals are utilized within the confines of the earth.
• Energy from the sun converts to sugar (photosynthesis) for consumer organisms to make plant starch.
• Food chains and webs transfer energy and nutrition.
• Population control results from predator-prey relationships.

Environmental Principle No. 6: Nature is beautiful and we (human) are Stewards of God's Creation

• Creation requires a Creator, and the deteriorating nature is a consequence of human use.
• Attitude towards creation reflects the relationship with a Human-Creator relationship
• There are different levels of this relationship
  • Dominion of humans over creation, humans can do as they wish because this was given by God
  • Stewardship, of a caretaker where humans are not owners but guardians of the integrity of nature
  • Kinship relationship, where humans are no higher than the birds and fishes of the sea.
  • Sacrament, where nature becomes a testimony of God's love.
  • Covenant relationship, where protection of the earth is a life mission.

Environmental Principle No. 7: Everything Changes

• Changes in the biophysical world occur naturally.
• Morphological changes happen as metamorphosis of caterpillars into butterflies.
• Seasons contribute to flower, fruit, vegetable diversity
• Natural disasters, such as typhoons destroy forests, coral reefs and mangroves and volcanic eruptions annihilate surface flora and submerge rivers.
• Sustainable development presents a change for the 21st century.
• Sustainable development promotes ecological integrity, resource sharing and people empowerment as pillars of growth.

Explore the fundamental principles of Environmental Science. Understand the interconnectedness of ecosystems, where living and non-living components mutually influence each other. Discover how these relationships create dependencies and life-support systems.