Natural resources as indicators of environmental safety: Situation and perspectives of the Republic of Serbia

The ubiquitous trend of intensive exploitation of natural resources at the national and global level can cause a series of environmental, political and social disturbances. The need for a healthy environment, on the one hand, and the improvement of people's living standards in the 21st century, on the other, are often incompatible despite the constant formal emphasis on the term or dissonant interpretation of the importance of the concept of sustainable development. In the theoretical sense, changes (disturbances) in the environment are the result of complex natural and social cause-and-effect actions, which, viewed in a wider context, unites ecological security. It can also be said that the conditional degradation of space is an inevitable consequence of the initiation of development, provided that the impacts are reduced to a minimum level by rehabilitation and recultivation of the space and the living environment (which primarily refers to the construction of infrastructure and the arrangement of space for various purposes). This is solved during the preparation of planning documents, environmental impact analyzes and measures and policies for the implementation of planning solutions. Accordingly, for the purpose of researching changes in space and improving the solution to the scientific problem of the lack of adequate methodology for achieving ecological security on the territory of the Republic of Serbia, the most important natural resources were identified as basic indicators in this work: water, soil, air and biodiversity. In accordance with the projected goal (systematic description of the state of ecological security in the territory of the Republic of Serbia with a special reference to the state of natural resources), one of the main techniques will be the analysis of the content of documents created or generated within individual national institutions, as well as international and non-governmental organizations. According to the available data, it can be concluded that the current state of ecological security in the Republic of Serbia is violated or is potentially threatened, bearing in mind the fact that the main cause of the disturbance is the excessive or uncontrolled exploitation of natural resources, the trend of realizing short-term financial benefits, the absence of implementation of planned solutions, the creation of conflicts for the purpose of space and the application of measures against endangering the living environment.