Credenciales y experiencia
- Formación: Economista, Universidad de Antioquia (Medellín, Colombia).
- Experiencia: Cubriendo medio ambiente y desarrollo sustentable desde 2013.
- Manejo de datos: investigación y explotación directa de las bases de datos de los grandes centros de investigación internacionales — Banco Mundial, FAO, Servicio Geológico de Estados Unidos (USGS), Naciones Unidas y OCDE.
- Enfoque: traducir esos datos a un formato simple y gráfico — tablas, mapas y visualizaciones que permitan entender de un vistazo la situación ambiental de cada país.
- Publicaciones: 210 artículos publicados en Desarrollo Sustentable desde 2013, incluidas 163 fichas de recursos naturales por país.
- Ubicación: Medellín, Colombia.
Cómo se obtienen, verifican y actualizan estos datos: metodología y política editorial. Para correcciones o consultas: juanmonto5@hotmail.com.
Renewable vs Non-Renewable Resources: Key Differences
The fundamental difference between renewable and non-renewable resources is their replacement timescale: renewable resources regenerate naturally within human timeframes (from instantaneous solar irradiance to decades for mature forests), whereas non-renewable resources require millions of years of geological heat and pressure to accumulate, meaning their planetary stock is finite. In 2024, clean energy sources generated a…
Mineral Resources: Types, Uses and Country Examples
Mineral resources are naturally occurring inorganic substances in the Earth’s crust with definite chemical compositions and physical properties, categorized into metallic minerals (iron, copper, lithium), industrial minerals (phosphates, gypsum), and energy minerals (uranium, coal). In resource economics, a critical distinction separates occurrences (geological presence), reserves (economically extractable deposits), extraction (raw ore mined), and production (refined…
Why Natural Resources Matter: Uses and Conservation
Natural resources are the physical backbone of human civilization: they supply 100% of human food, over 90% of raw industrial materials, and nearly 80% of global primary energy through fossil fuels alone. Beyond direct commodities, natural ecosystems provide irreplaceable life-support services—such as the Amazon rainforest absorbing up to 2 billion tonnes of CO₂ a year…
Types of Natural Resources: Categories and Examples
Natural resources are fundamentally classified by renewability into renewable (replenished by natural cycles, such as solar, wind, water, and forests) and non-renewable (finite stocks formed over geological eras, such as petroleum, natural gas, coal, and minerals). Beyond renewability, earth scientists and environmental economists classify them by origin (biotic vs. abiotic), physical domain (water, forest, mineral,…
Oceania Natural Resources: Iron, Lithium and Coral Reefs
Oceania holds some of the most strategic natural resources on the planet: Australia produced around 930 million tonnes of iron ore in 2024 and was the world’s largest lithium producer with 88,000 tonnes, while the region is home to close to 185 million hectares of forest and to the Great Barrier Reef, covering some 344,400…
Latin America Natural Resources: Copper, Lithium and Oil
Latin America is one of the richest regions on Earth in natural resources: it holds the world’s largest tropical rainforest (the Amazon, home to at least 10% of all known species), the largest proven oil reserves (Venezuela, some 303 billion barrels), more than half of the world’s identified lithium resources in the Chile-Argentina-Bolivia “triangle”, and…
Amazon Rainforest Natural Resources: Water and Wildlife
The Amazon holds the most valuable natural resources on the planet: more than half of the world’s remaining tropical rainforest (some 5.5 million km²), close to one in every ten known species on Earth, roughly 56.8 billion tonnes of above-ground carbon, and a river that discharges around 15% of all the fresh water reaching the…
North America Natural Resources: Oil, Silver and Forests
North America holds exceptional natural wealth: Mexico is the world’s largest silver producer with 6,300 tonnes in 2024 (USGS), the United States leads global oil production at 13.2 million barrels a day (EIA) and Canada holds 369 million hectares of forest, close to 9% of the world total (NRCan). Add the Great Lakes, which hold…
Sustainable Consumption: What It Is and Real Examples
Sustainable consumption is the use of products and services with the least possible impact on the environment, also called responsible or conscious consumption. What is sustainable consumption in practice? According to the UN (2011), it seeks to minimize the negative effects of consumption and production while improving quality of life, taking the product’s whole life…
History of Sustainable Development: Origins and Milestones
The history of sustainable development comes from two ideas meeting: development, tied to the notion of progress since Greek and Roman times, and sustainability. The word sustainability was already in use among German foresters in the 18th century, and thinkers such as Thomas Robert Malthus were warning about the limits of population growth. So where…
