Experts have calculated the precise size of the ecological footprint of the Isle of Wight, a rural island off the south coast of England popular with tourists and retired people. The island's council - its local government body - helped to pay for the study which shows how sustainable the lifestyles of the island's 125,000 inhabitants are in global and local terms, with a view to developing more environment friendly policies. Because of the island status of the region studied it was possible to make detailed and precise estimates of the resources and products entering and leaving the island.
The findings are proving valuable to others seeking to find ways to reduce the overuse of the Earth's resources by the world's richer nations and to make development more sustainable. Island State, as the analysis was christened by Best Foot Forward - the Oxford-based group which carried out the research together with Imperial College London and the Isle of Wight Council - gathered large amounts of data concerning the resources used by the islanders and calculated the area of land required to produce the resources.
The conclusion was that if everyone on our planet lived in the same way as the population of the Isle of Wight - which has quite a modest lifestyle by western standards - we would need nearly two and a half planets to sustain us. If the island were to become self-sufficient while maintaining current lifestyles then it would have to be 2.25 times its size, or the population would need to reduce its consumption of resources by 56 per cent. As well as revealing the imbalance between the share of the Earth's resources used by the world's richer and poorer nations, the report provided much data which is essential for any attempt to reduce the imbalance. Analysis showed that a combination of feasible measures already under development of consideration, including more local food production, better waste recovery and waste minimisation, more renewable energy generation and increased energy efficiency measures could swiftly reduce the island's eco-footprint per person by around 10 per cent. To reduce it by 56 per cent - as would be required for the Isle of Wight to consume not more than the share of the sumed by all parts of the world would be sustainable - would require a more radical change of lifestyle.
Huge reductions in the ecological footprints of western areas such as the Isle of Wight would be possible by changing waste management, energy and good provision and travel policies. Today, islands produce large amounts of waste and send half of it to landfill. By producing much less waste and reusing and recycling whenever possible - using techniques already in existence - they could reduce the size of the portion of the eco-footprint involved with waste disposal per person by more than half.
Most of the energy that islanders consume is drawn from fossil fuels. By conserving energy and buying power from renewable sources, islanders could reduce the share of their eco-footprint devoted to energy provision by more than 90 per cent. By eating locally produced food and composting food waste they could reduce the share devoted to food production by two thirds.
By travelling mainly by foot, bicycle or public transport and holidaying closer to home, islands could reduce the share devoted to providing their transport needs by nearly three quarters. The Isle of Wight's per capita ecological footprint is already smaller than that of the United Kingdom as a whole and also smaller than that of other European countries, such as France and Germany, and considerably smaller than that of the United States or Canada. As Nicky Chambers of Best Foot Forward, one of the authors of the study, points out, its findings do much to show how best to reduce the size of unsustainable western footprints while minimising the cost to the quality of life.
The study also points to areas where local and central government action can have the greatest effect in reducing footprint size, at the lowest cost. Undoubtedly, the encouragement of recycling and waste reduction, the development of renewable energy sources and the provision of attractive public transport rank high as areas where the size of the rich nations' ecological footprints can be greatly reduced without much loss to quality of life. Indeed it may sometimes positively benefit.
(http://www.bestfootforward.com )
Freitag, 24. August 2001