ECHOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT
Muhammad Reza Fahlevi
Ankara University
In
this opportunity I will discuss about Ecological Footprint. You’ve probably
heard of the Ecological Footprint. In international issues Ecological Footprint
is the issue that very often discussed by the people.
What
is The Ecological Footprint? The Ecological Footprint is a system that measures
how much water and land required to produce a source for human population. The
function of Ecological Footprint for nations is a resource accounting tool that
help countries understand their ecological balance sheet and gives them the
data necessary to manage their resources and secure their future. The concept
of Ecological Footprint is introduced by William Race and Mathis Wackernagel in
1990.
In
Ecological Footprint is represent two side of balance sheet. Specifically,
Biocapacity and Footprint. Biocapacity is the capacity of the earth to fulfill
human needs and Footprint is the demand of human to the earth’s ecosystems. As
I know there is some footprint in this earth :
-
Forest Footprint: Human always cut down trees
to produce timber (furniture and something like that) and paper.
-
Carbon Footprint
: Vehicles which always use gasoline or diesel as a fuel and also can damaging
ozone.
-
Built-up Land
Footprint : Vacant land always use for make building, like home, mall, store
and others.
-
Cropland and
Pasture Footprint : human always take a food and flore from the earth.
-
Fisheries
Footprint : Human always fishing fish from the sea
After
we use natural resources certainly we have to recycling it in order to keep the
balance of the earth by Ecological Footprint. But, our current global situation
since 1970s, humanity has been ecological overshoot with annual demand of
natural resources exceeding what earth can regenerate each year.
Today
the condition of our earth humanity uses the equivalent of 1.5 planets to
provide the resources we use and absorb our waste. This means it now takes the
Earth one year and six months to regenerate what we use in a year.
In
Moderate UN scenarios suggest if our current population and consumption is
continue perhaps in 2030s we need 2 earth to support us. And of course this
should not occur because we just have one.
In
country’s scope footprint is influenced by individuals. The size of person’s ecological
footprint depends on development level and wealth, because if they life in the
development level and wealth its mean they life with high lifestyle and if they
life with high lifestyle its needs a lot of natural resources to fulfill their
needs. For example, individuals generally have no direct control over the size of
the built-up land footprint until that region become very overshoot like United
State of America. For more detail example we will discuss it in our meeting.
How to solve it ? This is a globalized
problem so to solve this problem everyone needs to contribute to a solution.
This is a prosperity problem everyone wants a better lifestyle which often
involves increased consumption. Developing country want to consume more and
developed country don’t want to consume less.
Sources :
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