WWF Living Planet Report shows Australia's ecological footprint improving but world living beyond its means

Extract from ABC News

By environment and science reporter Jake Sturmer

Updated 8 minutes agoTue 30 Sep 2014, 9:58am

 

Photo: Australia's has the 13th largest footprint per person, in part because of carbon emissions. (Reuters: David Gray)

Map: Australia

Australia's environmental ranking has improved in the past few years according to an analysis of the world's largest ecological footprints.

But the WWF's biennial Living Planet Report warned that the world was struggling to sustain the demands of modern society.
Launched at the United Nations in Geneva, the report ranked 152 nations' ecological footprints and warned the world was living beyond its means.
It found Australia had the 13th largest ecological footprint per person in the world, mostly because of carbon emissions and the amount of land required for crops and grazing.
Australia's ecological footprint was ranked the seventh largest in 2012.

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The report found global wildlife populations had fallen by more than half in just 40 years, according to the Living Planet Index.
The index was maintained by the Zoological Society of London and tracked more than 10,000 vertebrate species populations from 1970 onwards.
"The scale of biodiversity loss and damage to the ecosystems essential for our well-being is alarming and a direct consequence of the way we produce and consume," WWF Australia chief executive Dermot O'Gorman said.

Read the Living Planet Report summary here

Ecological footprints per capita

1. Kuwait
2. Qatar
3. United Arab Emirates
4. Denmark
5. Belgium
6. Trinidad and Tobago
7. Singapore
8. USA
9. Bahrain
10. Sweden
11. Canada
12. Netherlands
13. Australia
14. Ireland
15. Finland

The report said if the rest of the world lived like Australians, we would need 3.6 Earths to sustain our total demands on nature.
High-income countries had a per-capita ecological footprint on average five times that of low-income countries.
But while low-income countries had the smallest footprint, they generally tended to suffer the greatest ecosystem losses.
The report provided some positive news for water quality on the Great Barrier Reef in Queensland.
It found that pioneering farming practices on the Queensland coast helped achieve a 15 per cent reduction in pesticide pollution and 13 per cent reduction in fertiliser pollution on the reef.
"Investment in innovative farming practices on the Queensland coast has seen significant reductions in pesticide and fertiliser pollution on the reef over the past five years," Mr O'Gorman said.

"The good news is that Australians are pioneering innovative production methods that are good for businesses, communities and the environment and which show the way forward for a growing world population."