The related terms resource extraction and Resource extraction industry both refer to the practice of locating, acquiring and selling any resource, but typically a natural resource.

The use of the term also implies a somewhat greedy approach:

to extract the most profitable portions of a resource, in the quickest and cheapest way, and to move on to other profit.

This can be seen in gold mining for instance, by the process of 'high-grading' ore... only extracting ore with the highest concentrate of precious metals, then abandoning or mothballing a mine... to return at a later date when scarcity has made the commodity more valuable, to mine it again, either from the original source or from materials discarded in the original extraction process, such as mine tailings. The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... Ore grade is a measure that describes the concentration of a valuable natural material (such as metals or minerals) in its surrounding ore. ... Tailings (also known as tailings pile, slickens[1] or gangue) are the waste materials left over[2] after removing the minerals from ore. ...

Resource extraction companies in general use local labor to extract the resource during its extraction phase, but lay off employees as the resource becomes more scarce. This can be seen in logging corporations in the American Pacific Northwest... when the trees are gone, the jobs are gone. The Pacific Northwest from space This page is about the region that includes parts of Canada and the US. For the US only region, see Northwestern United States The Pacific Northwest (abbreviated PNW, or PacNW) or Cascadia is a region in the northwest of North America. ...

This is another symptom of resource extraction: loggers -- forest laborers who do the work of extracting trees from wooded areas -- are usually people who enjoy being in a forest, that's one reason they live in forested areas, and a reason for them to seek forest employment. It is not the loggers' intent to deforest their environment, nonetheless, when the trees are gone, loggers often find themselves living in an environment that is no longer a forest ecosystem but at best, a tree farm, as monoculture planting does not 'reforest' an area. Often the situation is far worse. The trees being gone, the hillsides erode in large mudslides, siltifying streambeds (causing the stream to be so loaded with sediment as to become unfit for habitat), or even flooding them. Some towns have been heavily damaged or destroyed by logging activities. In many cases, fishing, hunting and tourism suffer... but the logging company has moved on in its quest for a more-profitable site from which to extract its resource. Eucalyptus Forest at Swifts Creek in East Gippsland, Victoria, Australia. ... An ecosystem, a contraction of ecological and system, refers to the collection of components and processes that comprise, and govern the behavior of, some defined subset of the biosphere. ... A sugarcane plantation at Ribeirão Preto, Brazil, 2005 A plantation is a large tract of monoculture, as a tree plantation, a cotton plantation, a tea plantation or a tobacco plantation. ... Monoculture describes systems that have very low diversity. ... Loggers on break, c. ... Severe soil erosion in a wheat field near Washington State University, USA. Erosion is the displacement of solids (soil, mud, rock, and so forth) by the agents of wind, water, ice, or movement in response to gravity. ... Mudslide in La Conchita, California A mudslide is a landslide of mud. ... Silt is soil or rock derived granular material of a specific grain size. ... Look up flood in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Modern resource extraction techniques are being forced to recognise the dwindling of some irreplaceable resources, and future practices will of necessity focus on replaceable resources and sustainable extraction rates. There may even come a time when mine tailings; industrial waste dumps; garbage dumps and landfills become the richest sources available for resource extraction. Tailings (also known as slickens[1]) are the waste left over[2] after removing the gangue from ore. ... Industrial waste is a waste caused by industrial factories or mills. ... A landfill compaction vehicle in operation A landfill, also known as a dump (US) or a tip (UK), is a site for the disposal of waste materials by burial and is the oldest form of waste treatment. ...

See Also

• Wise Use Movement