1.3.3—Environmental sustainability
- Syllabus
- First assessment 2026
- Objective
- 1.3.3
- Level
- HL
Harvest Within Renewal
Resource use is environmentally sustainable only when extraction allows replacement and the ecosystem that regenerates the resource can recover.
Compare extraction rate with renewal and check pollution, habitat and biodiversity. Renewable does not mean unlimited.
A fishery is sustainable when harvest stays within stock renewal and habitat recovers; a ‘renewable’ stock can still collapse under heavy harvest.
Stock renewal, habitat condition and the current extraction rate—not only whether fish reproduce.
Renewable resource does not automatically mean sustainable extraction.