London - The world is heading for an 'ecological credit
crunch' with demands on natural resources exceeding by almost a third
what the earth can sustain, conservation groups in Britain have
warned.
The Living Planet Report, produced by the World Wildlife Fund
(WWF), Britain's Zoological Society and the Global Footprint Network
said that more than 75 per cent of the global population lived in
countries where consumption levels were outstripping environmental
renewal.
This fact made those countries 'ecological debtors,' meaning that
they are drawing - and often overdrawing - on the agricultural land,
forests, seas and resources of other countries to sustain them, said
the report published Wednesday.
The report concludes that the reckless consumption of 'natural
capital' was endangering the world's future prosperity, with clear
economic impacts including high costs for food, water and energy.
'If our demands on the planet continue to increase at the same
rate, by the mid-2030s we would need the equivalent of two planets to
maintain our lifestyles,' WWF International director-general James
Leape said in the report.
The countries with the biggest impact on the planet are the US and
China, which together account for some 40 per cent of the global
footprint, the report showed.
It said that the US and United Arab Emirates have the largest
ecological footprint per person, while Malawi and Afghanistan have
the smallest.
According to the WWF, Britain's national ecological footprint -
the impact of consumption on nature - was the same in volume as that
of 33 African countries put together.
'We are increasingly overdrawing on the natural resources which
underpin all life on Earth, and our human footprint - the impact we
have - is 30 per cent bigger than the planet's ability to
regenerate,' said Chief Emeka Anyaoku, the WWF's international
president.
'Devastating though the financial credit crunch has been it's
nothing as compared to the ecological recession that we are facing,'
he warned.
The more than 2 trillion dollars lost on stocks and shares was
'dwarfed' by the up to 4.5 trillion dollars worth of resources
destroyed forever each year, said Anyaoku.
USA
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