Humans living far beyond planet's means: WWF
Tue Oct 24, 2006 6:29 AM ET
By Ben Blanchard
BEIJING (Reuters) - Humans are stripping nature at an unprecedented
rate and will need two planets' worth of natural resources every
year by 2050 on current trends, the WWF conservation group said on
Tuesday.
Populations of many species, from fish to mammals, had fallen by
about a third from 1970 to 2003 largely because of human threats
such as pollution, clearing of forests and overfishing, the group
also said in a two-yearly report.
"For more than 20 years we have exceeded the earth's ability to
support a consumptive lifestyle that is unsustainable and we cannot
afford to continue down this path," WWF Director-General James
Leape said, launching the WWF's 2006 Living Planet Report.
"If everyone around the world lived as those in America, we would
need five planets to support us," Leape, an American, said in
Beijing.
People in the United Arab Emirates were placing most stress per
capita on the planet ahead of those in the United States, Finland
and Canada, the report said.
Australia was also living well beyond its means.
The average Australian used 6.6 "global" hectares to support their
developed lifestyle, ranking behind the United States and Canada,
but ahead of the United Kingdom, Russia, China and Japan.
"If the rest of the world led the kind of lifestyles we do here in
Australia, we would require three-and-a-half planets to provide the
resources we use and to absorb the waste," said Greg Bourne,
WWF-Australia chief executive officer.
Everyone would have to change lifestyles -- cutting use of fossil
fuels and improving management of everything from farming to
fisheries.
"As countries work to improve the well-being of their people, they
risk bypassing the goal of sustainability," said Leape, speaking in
an energy-efficient building at Beijing's prestigous Tsinghua
University.
"It is inevitable that this disconnect will eventually limit the
abilities of poor countries to develop and rich countries to
maintain their prosperity," he added.
The report said humans' "ecological footprint" -- the demand people
place on the natural world -- was 25 percent greater than the
planet's annual ability to provide everything from food to energy
and recycle all human waste in 2003.
In the previous report, the 2001 overshoot was 21 percent.
"On current projections humanity, will be using two planets' worth
of natural resources by 2050 -- if those resources have not run out
by then," the latest report said.
"People are turning resources into waste faster than nature can
turn waste back into resources."
RISING POPULATION
"Humanity's footprint has more than tripled between 1961 and 2003,"
it said. Consumption has outpaced a surge in the world's
population, to 6.5 billion from 3 billion in 1960. U.N. projections
show a surge to 9 billion people around 2050.
It said that the footprint from use of fossil fuels, whose
heat-trapping emissions are widely blamed for pushing up world
temperatures, was the fastest-growing cause of strain.
Leape said China, home to a fifth of the world's population and
whose economy is booming, was making the right move in pledging to
reduce its energy consumption by 20 percent over the next five
years.
"Much will depend on the decisions made by China, India and other
rapidly developing countries," he added.
The WWF report also said that an index tracking 1,300 vetebrate
species -- birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles and mammals -- showed
that populations had fallen for most by about 30 percent because of
factors including a loss of habitats to farms.
Among species most under pressure included the swordfish and the
South African Cape vulture. Those bucking the trend included rising
populations of the Javan rhinoceros and the northern hairy-nosed
wombat in Australia.