The nation will protect its environment, its natural resource base, and the functions and viability of natural systems on all life depends ( President"s Council on Sustainable Dvelopment, 1994; and that sustainability is a participatory process that creates and pursues a vision of community that respects and makes prudent use of all its resources - natural, human, human - created, social,cultural, scientific etc. Sustainability seeks to ensure, to the degree possible, that present gererations attain a high degree of economic security, while assuming responsibility to future generations to provide them with the wherewithal for their vision, hoping that ethey the wisdom and intelligence to use what is provided in an appropriate manner. ....For more details consult https://www.nap.edu

Part of the problem/issue/concern here is that (A) not only is there a difference between protecting an preserving the environment (I am generally going to agree with Elena, and suggest these differ), but that (B) despite what laws and policies say (e.g., the nation should/will protect the ecosystem as in Sylvesters example), poor/lax implementation of laws means the environment will tend not be protected nor preserved. Now, that statement varies in the extent to which it is applicable across and within nations -- and you should feel free to find some quantitative evidence on this issue of you believe that you can change the hypothesis that laws and policies are not typically/usually/often implemented in ways that are consistent with the intent of the law/policy, and in ways that also protect and preserve the environment. Here, I used the word quantitative on purpose to indicate that even if you want to say you have qualitative examples, there is still some responsibility to quantitatively represent the evidence to saw some mass of cases on one side or the other; i.e., the example you give is not merely an exception.

Well,

preservation is the act of preserving; act of keeping from destruction, decay. protection is the process of keeping something safe.

Regards

Nice question and very interesting

I think that it's more suitable to preserve environment

act before that the damage act in the environement,

hope that we can have more about the sustainability paradigm

Thank you dear colleagues for your kind response. I can't agree more with your contributions. I understand the government is a key driver for implementating and following up with policies. I come from a corrupted country so ofcourse my prejudice can not be avoided. Although as M. J. Lynch responds the quantitative must play a major role in deciding wether the policies "work". So what would be wiser in any case?

a) Long-term governments and short-term markets? b) Long term governments and long-term markets? c) short term governments and long-term markets?

It seems like short-term goals have poorly shown the notion of strong sustainability.

Dear Elena,

The government is not the only think, everybody should take his responsability

and try the protect and to preserve the environement

Preserving might be short them but Protecting is long term

Preserving the environment leads to environmental sustainability development, which is the goal of the world. Protecting tend to put all necessary requirements together with the aim of minimizing risk i.e. risk based approach. Preserving & protection of the environment cannot be overlook by both developed and developing countries. UK and US are major countries which has drivers in place in management of their countries. Country like China, Columbia are also replicating. Africa are also making an attempt to upgrate their drivers by replicating develop countries. The major problem is that what causes contamination or pollution varies. So in an attempt to learn from developed world, this must also be put into consideration when making policy decisions

Protection is an aspect of preservation which entails keeping the environment safe from destruction. We can protect the environment but we cant preserve it due to the varying stressor ranging from anthropogenic to natural. On sustainability, both are unsustainable methods in conservation as they deprive user groups access and direct benefits from environmental services.

Thank you very much for your contributions. I believe that in most developed countries public policy-the government is the voice of the people. I generally agree with everyone. I understand that we have much more influence as individuals. I would personally prefer not to have to protect what maintains us. I strongly see how you aspire something similar. Instead I would rather maximize the carrying capacity by allowing to take it's natural path. We have tools to practice this in all levels.

I want to thank you once more and invite you to take part in the follow up of our conversation. See image above and please share your thoughts. I apologise for the quick sketch. :)

1) Can Bronferberenner's ecological theory assist as a framework to assist in taking responsibility? All the levels are interlinked and most importantly with out nature they don't exist. Surprising what connects nature with these levels are money and energy. Odum et.al., and many others, Is it not? I believe there are more levels beyond the self. Any thoughts? Also in a dynamic system all levels must be in harmony to be maintained as is. Ofcourse I guess in the self level if a situation is unstable we ought to change it or wish to balance it. Right?

Should the question be if the terms are different or should it be: do we want to have to protect and preserve or do we want to decrease the environmental load anyway so we don't have to in the first place- and that is what a strong sustainability paradigm is.

2) Can you think of examples and ways we can achieve that?

The diagram I posted is missing the units which is another layer refered asthe chronosystem: change/time.

Ofcourse these two conceptual models can be interpreted in a few ways. Also they can both be true when viewed from a different perspective.

Environmental protection is the practice of protecting the natural environment by individuals, organizations and governments. Its objectives are to conserve natural resources and the existing natural environment and, where possible, to repair damage and reverse trends .

Preservation , attempts to maintain in their present condition areas of the Earth that are so far untouched by humans. This is due to the concern that mankind is encroaching onto the environment at such a rate that many untamed landscapes are being given over to farming, industry, housing, tourism and other human developments, and that we our losing too much of what is 'natural'.

Thank you everyone for taking the time to contribute in this discussion. As Khansaa mentioned preservation can be defined keeping the untouched from human places untouched and protection taking care of the human effects on nature. This is what I was also tought during my bachelor. But as we know today there is no place that is not affected by humans since we have overpassed the biosphere limits. In a way pollution can not be disrigarded from any level. For the above system to work we input money and energy and the driver to produce energy which is: the system and it's components- including human labor etc., the macroscopic goal and the microscopic actions. What comes out of the system is waste - pollution.

Could circular systems require less protection that other type of systems? Or which type of system would require less environmental practices?

Well, the term protection is to keep the environment safe, while preserving the environment is to sustain its resources and at the same time developing new methods to keep it safe. Therefore, preserving is more comprehensive than protecting.

Thank you everyone for your contributions. I conclude that pro activeness is a strong sustainability development measure where as passiveness is a weak sustainability development measure at all levels in the society.

You could think of it like this; protecting the environment is a requirement for the achievement of weak sustainability. Protection in a passive sense that some minimum level of the "environment" must be protected to keep levels of well-being sustainable. Preserving the environment is a requirement of strong sustainability where there is some active sense where we require more than a minimum level of the environment in and of itself to sustain welfare.