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Summary
Natural resources include everything physically available to mankind. Man will never exhaust these, the limiting factor being determined by what can be exploited economically at any particular time. For this part of a natural resource the term ‘reserves’ is used.
There is a complex interaction between population and natural resources. In any country the use of resources is related to the number of people and also to the nature and level of economic activity. Increases in either of these tends to increase the rate of depletion of reserves. This results in price increases.
South Africa has the basic resources required for sustaining life and for providing rising living standards for its people for the foreseeable future. Problem areas are adequate water supplies towards the year 2000. Food and clothing supplies exceed our needs but may also be inadequate by the turn of the century. South Africa's energy requirements will be met to an increasing extent from coal, hydroelectric power and nuclear fuels. The prospects for oil and gas on land are poor, but there is some prospect of petroleum from off-shore areas. Solar energy has specific applications which justify more intensive study and application. The mineral resources of South Africa, which are our greatest natural asset, will continue to provide the major part of our exports, so yielding the foreign exchange required for infrastructural and general economic development and for security. Our most urgent national problem related to resources is population growth, which adversely affects every facet of socio-economic development.