environmental potential — English

An economic appraisal of the ability of the natural environmental components in a specific area or region to profitably support a certain type of economic activity. The environmental resources may be able to support one or more of the following: mining, tourism, settlement, agriculture in the form of animal husbandry or crop cultivation or both, forestry, fishing, and many more. If the environment in a specific area has excellent potential to produce food crops, it would be unwise to use the land for forestry, a golf course, or residential purposes. It would be environmentally highly irresponsible to convert all scenic, relatively pristine land into golf courses as is currently the highly profitable practice. Certain attributes such as the occurrence of exploitable minerals, proximity to a large industrial development, proximity to a flourishing tourist destination, or being located on the main road to a popular nature reserve or game park greatly increase the environmental potential of a stretch of land. The environmental potential of land is also influenced by the occurrence of archaeological remains and sites on or near the property, while land located inside or near to an area that is of religious, cultural or historic importance has a number of options for tourism developments and has, therefore, a higher potential.

Afrikaans Sesotho sa Leboa isiZulu

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