please thanks to my answersExplanation:For most of us, conflict over natural resources is not a part of everyday life. We wake up in the morning and turn on the faucets to brush our teeth, shower, and drink a glass of water. We drive to and from work, school, and other activities, stopping every so often to fill up the tank with gas. We use energy to heat our homes, to cook food, to light our streets. Processed timber is used to form our desks, pencils, and paper. We sometimes buy diamond jewelry as a token of love or status. But in many areas around the world, access to natural resources cannot be taken for granted. According to the United Nations, many women walk several hours a day just to find water; and more than two million people, most of them children, die from diseases associated with water stresses each year. 1 Some experts are predicting that the world’s supply of oil will run out in the not too distant future. And almost half of our old growth forests have been destroyed. The picture gets much more complicated when access to these natural resources BECOME the reason for a conflict or, much more frequently, are used to fuel a conflict. Paul Collier, an expert on the economics of civil war, estimates that close to fifty armed conflicts active in 2001 had a strong link to natural resource exploitation, in which either licit or illicit exploitation helped to trigger, intensify, or sustain violence. In Pakistan and Bolivia, for example, violent protests have broken out over the distribution of water. In the Middle East, disputes over oil fields in Kuwait, among other issues, led to the first Gulf War. In another example, the rebel groups REVOLUTIONARY United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone and National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (known by its Portuguese acronym UNITA) used revenues derived from diamond mining to fund their rebellions against their respective governments. Research has also indicated that wars appear to be lasting longer: the expected duration of conflict is now more than double that of conflicts that started prior to 1980. 2 One possible explanation is that it is now much easier to sustain and fund conflict than it used to be. It may be helpful to think of natural resources in terms of how they are used. Some resources, such as water and land, are used locally and may not have much impact beyond the local area. Other resources, such as timber, minerals, and oil, are used to PRODUCE revenue. It is these revenue-producing resources that cause the most problems, sometimes called the resource curse—the paradox that countries with abundant natural resources often have less economic growth than those without natural resources. The dependence on a few sources of revenue typically discourages diversification, leads to overheating of the economy, and increases volatility of prices and revenue. The ABUNDANCE also often leads to government mismanagement and corruption. In these and other ways, competition over natural resources can lead to, intensify, or sustain violence. (It should be noted here that conflict over natural resources is often part of, and exacerbates, a larger struggle over political, economic, cultural, or religious issues in the society.) Less dramatic, and less well covered 4 by the media, is the role natural resources can play in resolving and managing conflict and in preventing the reoccurrence of violence in the post-conflict environment. To help students understand this role, this study guide will briefly describe those natural resources that are typically involved in violent conflicts, the role of natural resources as causes of conflict or escalation of conflict, and their role in managing conflict and bringing about peace. Types of Natural Resources The World Bank defines natural resources as “materials that occur in nature and are ESSENTIAL or useful to humans, such as water, air, land, forests, fish and wildlife, topsoil, and minerals.”3 These resources can be classified as renewable or nonrenewable. In most cases, renewable resources such as cropland, forests, and water can be replenished over time by natural processes and—if not overused—are indefinitely sustainable. Nonrenewable resources such as diamonds, minerals, and oil are found in finite quantities, and their value increases as supplies dwindle. A nation’s access to natural resources often determines its wealth and status in the world economic system. Below are some categories of natural resources. Agriculture, though strongly linked to natural resources, is generally not thought of as a natural resource as it depends largely on cultivation. However, economies that are heavily dependent on agriculture certainly depend heavily on other natural resources such as water and land.