Nature does not need human "help" to exist. It is us who need nature to breathe, eat and drink. To further utilize the ability of environment to transform solar energy and organic matter into “products” which are useful for us, we need to preserve nature’s ability of self-regulation and production. We cannot replace natural processes with technology. Our knowledge of nature, its components and processes taking place around us is too narrow to predict the effects of our activity or take responsibility of processes like synthesis of oxygen or global water balance. That is why we must protect the environment.

We must preserve the whole "working" nature to ensure that the environment we live in is safe and cheap in use for us. It is cheaper to protect the environment and use it wisely than to replace its functions with technology. Humans interfere with nature and exploit its resources, changing the environment shaped within millions of years of evolution.

The most exploited resources are:

• non-renewable resources – minerals and fuels like oil, natural gas and coal;
• soil - acquiring new lands for agriculture results in deforestation and drying of swamps, peat bogs marshes;
• water – exploitation of underground and surface waters , changing the course of rivers, building dams, irrigation and drying;
• species and biocoenosis – intensification of agriculture is connected to the removal of many living components out of any ecosystem; fishing leads to destruction of populations, introduces serious changes to the structure of species (e.g. only small specimens that are able to escape from the fishing nets, survive long enough to breed) or leads to extinction of whole species (like sharks or whales).

The exploitation of resources and mass production of waste results in growing changes in global circulation of water, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, calcium and other elements. Carbon dioxide has the greatest impact on global changes in the environment, as it induces worldwide changes of the climate.

Biosecurity
The beginning of the 21st century marks the appearance of the biosecurity concept. Biosecurity is an idea that gives priority to ensure survival and healthy conditions for people over any economical benefits.

Biosecurity should ensure protection against:

• diseases (especially epidemic),
• famine,
• lack of water.

Actions undertaken to ensure biosecurity include:

• protection of the environment (protection of  biological diversity and functioning ecosystems),
• regulations in agriculture favouring protection and reconstruction of biodiversity and ecosystems,
• protection of mankind from hunger,
• ensuring health and survival of cultivated plants and livestock,
• control over vermin infestations,
• control over plant and animal diseases,
• control over introduction of genetically modified organisms and products,
• control over introduction of foreign species and genotypes,
• countermeasures against bioterrorism.

How to protect nature?
We must undertake actions (political and economical) in a way to preserve nature in a condition enabling its self-regulation and reconstruction of its components, in return nature will create good living conditions for us.

Should we protect species or ecosystems?
The idea of protecting endangered species is commonly known and accepted. It is good to protect European bison, storks or swallowtails but what about those organisms we can’t see and appreciate their role – hundres of species of bacteria, fungi or nematodes?. Are they less worthy for the environment than a bison?

To effectively protect endangered species, we must protect them along with their habitats (that is with all conditions needed for living, developing and breeding). But to protect nature as a "working system", we must find places where ecosystems have full species composition and spatial structure and ensure their survival in unchanged conditions. Even if we are not aware of the presence of some organisms and relationships among them, we can be sure that they will also be safe if the ecosystem they live in is protected. Protection of ecosystems is more efficient and complete and gives better prospects for survival of species and their habitats. Nature Reserves and National Parks are such forms of nature protection.