Conservation is all about believing that some things that occur naturally are worth preserving and caring for otherwise the advance of people will destroy them forever.

Conservation of the land is about trying to protect the natural plants and rivers in areas of the world that are large enough to work in a natural balance. This is why people are worried about areas like the Amazon rainforest.

In developed areas conservation is sometimes a matter of putting land back into a state that it was like before it was changed, perhaps by farming, perhaps by industry or pollution.

Some examples of this are very striking, such as the Shenandoah National Park in eastern United States which used to be an area of farmland and has been allowed to regrow naturally as forest.

In places like the United States where some areas were developed quite recently, then large areas of wilderness can be set aside because it was clear what would happen otherwise. In places that have been settled for a long time, such as the United Kingdom, it is a matter of trying to maintain traditional ways of using the land and preventing more housing and industry, The Lake District is a very good example.

In the video below you will take a walk in the woodlands of the Smoky Mountains and see how the plants and animals grow, and what treasures we are trying to preserve.