China Using Up Natural Resources Fast, Report Says
SWITZERLAND: June 11, 2008
GENEVA - China is drawing on natural resources such as farm land, timber and
water twice as fast as they can be renewed in its drive for development, a
report from Chinese and international environmentalists said on Tuesday.
The report said the next 20 years would be critical to correct the situation
and put the Asian giant's burgeoning economy, with a rapidly growing
population, on to a sustainable path.
"China's average ecological footprint has doubled since the 1960s and now
demands more than two times what the country's ecosystems can sustainably
supply," said a summary of the report, issued by the Swiss-based WWF
International.
It said China's "footprint" -- a measure of how much productive land and
inland water resources are used up to satisfy the average current lifestyle
of each member of the population -- was running at 1.6 hectares per person.
This suggested that for China's current 1.2 billion people -- one sixth of
the world population -- to sustain this rate, it would need to either double
the land and water area it uses or cut back to nearer the available 0.8
hectares per person.
The report was commissioned jointly by the WWF, formerly the World Wide Fund
for Nature, and the China Council for International Cooperation on
Environment and Development (CCICED) in Beijing.
CHINESE EXPERTS
It was drawn up with the help of Chinese experts by a US-based group, the
Global Footprint Network, which works with the WWF to produce reports on the
global, regional and national ecological impact of use of resources.
The Network reported with the WWF on Monday that many African countries were
running down their natural resources in the drive for development as their
populations grow, but were still using only 1.1 hectares per head, compared
with the 1.3 hectares available.
It said the global average footprint was 2.2 hectares per head --
significantly more than the 1.8 hectares available.
By 2050, the whole world's current rate of drawing on natural resources and
disposing of waste will require an entire extra planet, Monday's report
said.
CCICED Secretary General Zhu Guangyao, an author of the later study, "Report
on Ecological Footprint in China", was quoted by WWF as saying the next 20
years would be "a critical period ... for China to realise sustainable
development".
WWF said the report presented two strategies to tackle the Chinese problem,
starting with "easy" and "slow" measures that would be simple, cheap and
popular, such as investing in clean technology and changing to
energy-efficient light bulbs.
After that, it said, China could implement a wider approach focusing on
compact urban development, individual action, reducing hidden waste flows,
carbon reduction strategies, land management and efficiency increases.
(Editing by Kevin Liffey)
Story by Robert Evans
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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