Download the pdf - Global Footprint Network

10
eXeCutIve
suMMARY
28%
BetWeen
1970 AnD 2008
the LIvIng
PLAnet InDeX
hAs DeCLIneD
BY ALMost 28%
gLoBALLY
Maintaining natural capital such as forests,
biodiversity, freshwater, and coastal and
marine ecosystems is essential to making
“green economies” a reality. Natural capital
is the stock of natural assets and resources
that provide ecosystem services, such as food,
water, timber, pollination of crops and absorption of
human waste products like carbon dioxide.
The challenge for countries of Asia and the Pacific is to manage their
natural capital sustainably, so that they maintain these services in
the interests of long-term development. Maintaining natural capital is
particularly critical for the rural poor, whose livelihoods and ability
to cope with natural disasters directly depend on the availability of
local natural assets and resources.
In countries of Asia and the Pacific, the gap between the Ecological
Footprint, or the demand for natural resources, and the environment’s
ability to replenish those resources, or its biocapacity, is widening.
For the last 35 years, global demand on natural capital has exceeded
the ability of many ecosystem services to regenerate. In Asia and the
Pacific, each person currently uses an average of 1.6 global hectares
(gha) of biologically productive area of land or sea annually for their
consumption needs. However, only 0.9 gha of biocapacity is available
per person in the region. The shortfall (0.8 gha per person) represents
a “biocapacity deficit” that can only be made up by importing natural
resources or by continuing to deplete natural capital. This deficit has
significant economic and environmental implications, including
rising commodity prices and shortages of key resources.
In the past two decades, the state of ecosystems in Asia and the Pacific
has been declining. Conversion of primary forests to agricultural land
or monoculture plantations has resulted in a marked decrease in so
called “old growth” forests that are more biologically diverse. Old growth
forests and other types of ecosystems provide essential services such
as carbon storage and clean water. Extensive coastal development and
unsustainable exploitation of marine resources have resulted in the
destruction of many major coastal habitats, including corals, mangroves,
seagrasses, wetlands and salt marshes. Freshwater ecosystems have
been converted for agricultural use and polluted with agricultural and
urban waste, and their natural flow has been disrupted by water storage
for agriculture, domestic use and hydropower. This has resulted in lower