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The related terms resource extraction and Resource extraction industry both refer to the practice of locating, acquiring and selling any resource, but typically a natural resource.

The use of the term also implies a somewhat greedy approach:

to extract the most profitable portions of a resource, in the quickest and cheapest way, and to move on to other profit.

This can be seen in gold mining for instance, by the process of 'high-grading' ore... only extracting ore with the highest concentrate of precious metals, then abandoning or mothballing a mine... to return at a later date when scarcity has made the commodity more valuable, to mine it again, either from the original source or from materials discarded in the original extraction process, such as mine tailings.

Resource extraction companies in general use local labor to extract the resource during its extraction phase, but lay off employees as the resource becomes more scarce. This can be seen in logging corporations in the American Pacific Northwest... when the trees are gone, the jobs are gone.

This is another symptom of resource extraction: loggers -- forest laborers who do the work of extracting trees from wooded areas -- are usually people who enjoy being in a forest, that's one reason they live in forested areas, and a reason for them to seek forest employment. It is not the loggers' intent to deforest their environment, nonetheless, when the trees are gone, loggers often find themselves living in an environment that is no longer a forest ecosystem but at best, a tree farm, as monoculture planting does not 'reforest' an area. Often the situation is far worse. The trees being gone, the hillsides erode in large mudslides, siltifying streambeds (causing the stream to be so loaded with sediment as to become unfit for habitat), or even flooding them. Some towns have been heavily damaged or destroyed by logging activities. In many cases, fishing, hunting and tourism suffer... but the logging company has moved on in its quest for a more-profitable site from which to extract its resource.

Modern resource extraction techniques are being forced to recognise the dwindling of some irreplaceable resources, and future practices will of necessity focus on replaceable resources and sustainable extraction rates. There may even come a time when mine tailings; industrial waste dumps; garbage dumps and landfills become the richest sources available for resource extraction.

• Wise Use Movement