What does sustainability mean?
Sustainability is an environmental term that describes how biological systems remain diverse and productive over time. For humans, sustainability is the ability to maintain the quality of life we live in the long term, which in turn depends on preserving the natural world and the responsible use of natural resources.
The term sustainability has become broad in scope and can be applied to almost every aspect of life on Earth, from the local to the global level, and over different time periods. Wetlands and healthy forests are examples of sustainable biological systems. The subtle biochemical cycles redistribute water, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon in the living and non-living systems of the world, ensuring perpetual life for millions of years. However, with the increasing human population on this Earth, natural ecosystems have declined, and changes in the balance of natural cycles have had negative impacts on both humans and other living systems.