By ANNE BESTON
Humankind will need to colonise at least one more Earth by 2050 if it keeps using the world's resources at the present rate, says a report.
The Living Planet Report, issued each year by the international conservation group WWF, shows that by 2050 humanity's "ecological footprint" on Earth
will be between 180 and 220 per cent of the planet's biological capacity.
The report also shows the average US resident's ecological footprint is about 24 times that of some Africans.
New Zealand comes in at number four on the biggest footprint scale with countries such as Finland and Canada.
The ecological footprint is the total area of productive land or sea required to produce all the crops, meat, seafood, wood and fibre a nation consumes, to sustain its energy consumption and to give space for its infrastructure.
WWF calculates humanity's ecological footprint by setting the planet's total productive land and sea at about 11.4 billion ha and dividing it by the world population - about 6 billion. That gives each person on the planet an average footprint of about 1.9ha.
But the average rate of use per person in 1999 was 2.3ha, about 20 per cent above Earth's biological capacity.
WWF estimates two extra planets will be required in 50 years time if natural resources continue to be plundered at the present rate.
The report shows the average African's or Asian's ecological footprint is less than 1.4ha. The average Western European's footprint is 5ha.
New Zealand had the fourth-biggest footprint - 9ha a person.
But WWF conservation director Chris Howe said the overall ecological footprint needed to be taken as a whole rather than country by country.
"In New Zealand's case, it looks high but that's only because it is being driven by exports - a lot of our production goes overseas."
While New Zealand was using more resources than it should, it was also working towards sustainable use of forests and fisheries, he said.
In the US, the average ecological footprint per person was put at 12.2ha and, for Ethiopia, 2ha. For Burundi, smallest consumer of the world's resources, it was just half a hectare.
Canada, Finland and the United Arab Emirates were high on the big-users list while Mozambique, Pakistan and Bangladesh were tailenders.
The Living Planet report is based on 1999 data from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, the International Energy Agency - an independent organisation with 26 member countries from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development - and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as well as peer-reviewed science journals.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
WWF
nzherald.co.nz/environment
By ANNE BESTON
Humankind will need to colonise at least one more Earth by 2050 if it keeps using the world's resources at the present rate, says a report.
The Living Planet Report, issued each year by the international conservation group WWF, shows that by 2050 humanity's "ecological footprint" on Earth
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