Ecological Footprints of an individual and its importance

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Posted by iEcology | Posted in Ecology | Posted on 10-01

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A finite amount of resources is present in the Earth and the amount of land which is required in order to support the consumption habits of an individual is known as the ecological footprint. In simple words ecological footprint can be described as the amount of earth’s resource required for the survival of an individual. Ecological footprints have been an important issue for many years. The population of world started to increase since the time human race became civilized. Slowly the population increased to the peak level and, as it increased, the usage of earth’s resources also increased. The population growth is increasing, but not the resources. The earth’s resources are limited. At present the condition is very critical as the resources became very less and no human force can increase the resource level of Earth.

U.S. report shows that an average individual’s ecological footprint is around 25 acres, which is recorded as maximum when compared with other countries of the world. The condition must be such that the ecological footprint of an individual should be limited to 4.5 acres. As science and technology started to develop around the globe, different spreadsheets and calculators have been developed which help in the measurement of ecological footprints. These systems measure the amount of resources that are used to produce food for the living organism and from this the ecological footprint measurement is done. In this process factors like pollution, quantity of fuel required for working of machineries, etc also play a role. An ideal ecological footprint will be such that all these factors can work and still be enough for regenerating the resources by itself.

Since many years, scientists have been doing research works to understand how the population of the earth impacts on the surrounding environment. At the present, the earth is overcrowded and until or unless the population is controlled the ecological footprint can not be brought to the optimal one. If the population of the earth continues to increase at this pace then the day when all the earth’s resources will get finished, is not so far away. Without the natural resources no living organism can survive. And, the natural resources can never be created by humans. Moreover the resources that we are using everyday were created as the evolution of life took place and it took millions and millions of years for this. The present usage rate of resources is so fast and high that they hardly get time for regenerating. As a result of this, shortage of resources has already started to become an issue. If we do not become cautious about this fact then our future generation will hardly get to use natural resources. In fact they might not even see this world as without natural resource no living organism can survive. So, we must strictly start to notice about this fact and use limited resources so that they get time to regenerate a bit.

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