year 9 ecological footprints

Danny O’Callaghan Kingdown School Warminster

Ecological Footprints


What is sustainable development

is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.


What is an Ecological footprint

The Ecological Footprint measures the amount of nature's resources an individual, a community, or a country consumes in a given year.


What is an Ecological footprint

It takes into account the land required to supply the resources we consume such as food timber and energy, the land we live on and the land taken to absorb our impacts such as pollution and waste.


How much is there for each Global Citizen ?

There are 12.4 billion hectares of bio-productive land on Earth.

The world population is approximately 6,000,000,000.

For each person there is 0.25 hectares of arable land, 0.6 hectares of pasture, 0.6 hectares of Forest and 0.03 hectares of built up land = 1.5 hectares per capita.

If we include seas there exists 2 hectares per capita for human use. (EACH !)


• HOWEVER some of this space is used by 30,000,000 other species that share this planet. In order to protect these species it is estimated that 12% of the earths ecological capacity needs to be reserved for them if they are to survive.

• If we allow land to protect these species it means that only 1.7 hectares per capita are available for human use.


1.7


1.7 hectares = the ECOLOGICAL BENCHMARK for comparing peoples ecological footprints.

Assuming NO further environmental damage the amount of available biologically productive space will drop to 1 hectare per capita when the worlds population reaches 10,000,000,000.


Food Mobility Shelter Goods/Services


There is 1.7 hectares per capita available for human use.

USA 12.2 Australi

a 8.5

UK 6.2

Japan 5.9

Argentina 3.7

Brazil 2.5

China 1.8 !

Egypt 1.7

India 1.1

Ethiopia 0.8

Bangladesh 0.6


• The 'ecological footprint' of industrialized countries (resources consumed per person) is huge: 4-6 hectares of land are needed to maintain the average consumer lifestyle in the North. Yet in 1990 the total available productive land globally was only 1.7 hectares per person.


Now its up to you !


How to Reduce an Ecological Footprint ?

• Reducing waste of energy• Reducing the amount of water we

use.• Changing our diet so we use less land• Making our houses more eco-friendly• Reducing our reliance on transport• Reducing pollution we create• Reducing waste we generate• Encourage people to recycle• Protecting plants and animals


Reducing waste of energy


Reducing the amount of water we use.


Changing our diet so we use less land


•Reducing our reliance on transport

year 9 ecological footprints

Technology

hectares of land

hectares of arable land

hectares of pasture

hectares of bio

hectares of forest

ecological benchmark

peoples ecological footprints

human use