Nowadays, environmental issues including air and water pollution,
climate change, overexploitation of marine ecosystems, exhaustion of
fossil resources, conservation of biodiversity are receiving major
attention from the public, stakeholders and scholars from the local to
the planetary scales. It is now clearly recognized that human activities
yield major ecological and envir- mental stresses with irreversible loss
of species, destruction of habitat or c-
matecatastrophesasthemostdramaticexamplesoftheire?ects.Infact, these
anthropogenic activities impact not only the states and dynamics of
natural resources and ecosystems but also alter human health,
well-being, welfare and economic wealth since these resources are
support features for human life. The numerous outputs furnished by
nature include direct goods such as food, drugs, energy along with
indirect services such as the carbon cycle, the water cycle and
pollination, to cite but a few. Hence, the various ecological changes
our world is undergoing draw into question our ability to sustain
economic production, wealth and the evolution of technology by taking
natural systems into account. The concept of "sustainable development"
covers such concerns, although no universal consensus exists about this
notion. Sustainable development - phasizes the need to organize and
control the dynamics and the complex - teractions between man,
production activities, and natural resources in order to promote their
coexistence and their common evolution. It points out the importance of
studying the interfaces between society and nature, and es-
ciallythecouplingbetweeneconomicsandecology.Itinducesinterdisciplinary
scienti?c research for the assessment, the conservation and the
management of natural resources.
