Stewardship implies sustainability

The term stewardship recognizes the role and responsibility humans have to sustain components of Earth's cycles and spheres for future generations. In turn, sustainability implies stewardship because it involves living within the capacity of supporting ecosystems. Both concepts recognize the need to maintain Earth's ecosystems for hundreds and thousands of years into the future.

Stewardship and sustainability can only be realized if resources are used wisely, starting with the basic practices of conservation and recycling on an individual level. Government and industry, at local, national and multi-national levels, also have the responsibility to act in ways that serve the welfare of future generations.

While these principles may seem obvious, putting them into practice is often complex. Part of the problem is assigning value to less tangible things that we don't use directly yet are necessary to support Earth’s ecosystems.

Economists, policy analysts and researchers classify goods and services as having direct, indirect, and existence values. Direct value is typically applied to consumable goods such as food, timber, coal or water as compared to the indirect value of services and systems that support consumable goods. Existence value is applied to things that provide the infrastructure necessary for ecosystems and their species to thrive. Very often, existence value refers to things we may never see in our lifetimes but would consider to be a loss if they were to disappear, like the arctic ice shield or a remote wildlife refuge. As compared to things that are consumed directly, the indirect and existence value of services and systems that support consumable goods is often hard to value and advocate for.

Stewardship requires sound science
The other reason that the principles of stewardship and sustainability may be hard to promote is skepticism which can be addressed by sound scientific data. A good steward recognizes the need to monitor and measure in order to understand how ecological systems operate. Like every living entity, humans affect the environment that we live in. Humans, however, have the intellectual power to understand the results of our actions. With this knowledge we can plan development strategies and technologies that won’t waste resources or harm the environment and may even benefit ecosystems.